Box office Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark grossed $68.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $35.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $104.5 million. The film made $8.8 million on its first day, including $2.33 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $20.8 million, finishing second, behind holdover
Hobbs & Shaw. It dropped 52% in its second weekend to $10.1 million, finishing fifth.
Critical response On the
review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 78% based on 235 reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, "Like the bestselling series of books that inspired it,
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark opens a creepy gateway into horror for younger genre enthusiasts."
Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 61 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale, while those at
PostTrak gave it an average 3 out of 5 stars and a 53% "definite recommend". Ben Kenigsberg of
The New York Times called the film "an agreeable bit of fan service." Keith Uhlich of
The Hollywood Reporter conversely termed it a "lackluster adaptation", adding that the monsters depicted in the film are "scary", though "they'd be much more so if they felt less like franchisable
IP and more like fervent expressions of the ills of the eras on which the film aims to comment." William Bibbiani of
Bloody Disgusting wrote that the film "often works very well for several, breathless minutes at a time. But in between those excellent scares there's a lot of filler, a lot of perfunctory plotting and a lot of mediocre character development." Alan Jacques of
Limerick Post gave the film two points out of five and stated "This movie is definitely not meant for a pre-teen audience. There are one or two genuinely creepy moments that would leave your precious nippers sleeping with the lights on until they finish college.... For a young audience coming to horror for the first time, this isn't a bad place to start, but for anyone with a real appreciation of the genre this might feel rather dull and unoriginal." In his review for
The Verge, Noah Berlatsky stated "...
Scary Stories is remarkably insightful and sober in its assessment of the way stories control people, rather than the other way around. Quentin Tarantino's
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was supposed to be the summer's virtuoso meta-fiction, but its rewritten happy ending, musing on the impotence of writing, seems a lot less bleak than
Scary Stories acknowledgment that some scripts will take you far away where you'll never be seen again." Tomris Laffly of
RogerEbert.com gave the film three stars out of four, stating "Still,
Scary Stories is a strangely uplifting throwback to old-fashioned clans of investigative teens. While it doesn't break any new ground, there is plenty of vintage fun to be had with kids who feel their way through life's impending fears and live to tell the tale." Writing for
The Guardian, Simran Hans gave the film three stars out of five, noting "Producer and co-writer Guillermo del Toro brings Alvin Schwartz's much-loved children's book series to the big screen, but this uneven film can't decide who it's trying to scare."
The New Yorkers Richard Brody mentioned "There's authentic charm to the fine-grained didacticism of the plot of "Scary Stories", which embodies the very virtues that it promotes. In the process of displaying the redemptive power of factual knowledge, however, the movie flattens and tames the power of imagination." David Ehrlich of
IndieWire added "André Øvredal's film adaptation, as clever and well-crafted as it is, can't help but invert the formula that the source material relied upon for its success. Here is an R-rated concept that's been watered down until it passed for a PG-13 movie; it's plenty harrowing and full of gruesome effects, but it never feels dangerous."
The Atlantics Julie Beck noted "The best scary stories do that—they get under your skin and emerge again and again. (
The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out.)
Scary Stories the movie just bounces right off." David Fear of
Rolling Stone gave the movie three stars out of five, commenting "It's all a lot of chain-rattling, black-cat-screeching fun, though not such a blast that you don't notice how generic and ramshackle the whole endeavor feels... The pity is that Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark will mostly be seen by jaded genre completists and nostalgic fortysomethings. Wrong demographic. You owe it to your kids to take them to this. It's training-wheels horror done right." Aja Romano of
Vox gave the film three and half points out of five and wrote "...the film leans all the way into the chance to tell a story beset with cultural anxieties of the past that strongly mirror those of the present. It's far more like a classic piece of young adult fiction than the juvenile fiction it's adapting; its focus isn't on kids, but on teens who are coming of age in a turbulent, complicated, and often maliciously unjust world. Their supernatural monsters, in contrast, are culled from juvenile fears and fantasies. The resulting folkloric aesthetic makes
Scary Stories brand of fantasy all the more effective as fun visual horror. But on a thematic level, it creates a discordance with the film's more adult social horrors, and the two elements never quite unify." A.A. Dowd of
The A.V. Club gave the film B grade and wrote "Like scouts huddled around a campfire, each trying to send a bigger chill down the others' spines,
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark keeps coming up with new gruesome attractions, piling one on top of the next. Yet as gross and spooky and, yes, occasionally frightening as these terror tactics get, they never quite cross over into the deep end of truly grown-up horror."
The Times of India's Neil Soans gave the film three stars out of five, noting "The screenplay ends up as a jumble of unexplored ideas onscreen rather than a cohesive narrative. However, if you only enjoy horror films for creepy monsters, you'll manage to get a kick or two."
Accolades == Sequel ==