Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) Poster

Parents Guide

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Certification

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MPAA Rated PG-13 for terror/violence, disturbing images, thematic elements, language including racial epithets, and brief sexual references.
Certification

Sex & Nudity

  • A girl is seen in a bra
  • A man says "I haven't even had sex yet!" This is the only noticeable sexual reference in the film.
  • A teen boy owns a pen that has a woman in lingerie on it.
  • A boy looks in the window of his friend's older sister's window. The brother calls him a pervert.
  • One boy calls another a "horndog" and tells him to lose his stiffy and help them.

Violence & Gore

  • A teen is stabbed with a pitchfork. There's no blood, but hay is seen coming out of his mouth and ears. This is shown up close, and onscreen. A man's neck is broken very quickly with barely any sound. A monster's body parts continuously flop around forming a body. No blood or wounds, just loose monster body parts. A girl draws a bit of blood from her finger. A teen influenced on alcohol slaps his friend and shoves his girlfriend.
  • The violence in the film is shown below:
  • We hear an audio tape of a brother interogating his sister. We hear her screaming. The voices are dark and eerie and this is a creepy sequence.
  • The group of main characters throw a bag of flaming feces into the car of a bully who then crashes.
  • A girl is dragged by her hair as she screams
  • A monster combines itself from body parts, the head opening its jaw and squirming to its body may be unintentionally funny to an adult or teen (along with some other scenes with said character), but it's broken and twisted walk and contortions would be nothing but disturbing to a very young child.
  • This feature is not very gory, more just the atmosphere and body horror.
  • The film isn't very gory, but there is some violence. A teen gets stabbed in the back with a pitchfork. 3 tiny holes are shown in his back, but there is no blood. Hay starts coming out of his mouth and ears. In another scene a girl has a big pimple that continues to grow, and then spiders start to come out of it. No blood though

Profanity

  • One clearly mouthed use of "Fuck", 31 uses of shit, 9 uses of Hell, 2 uses of bitch and other milder language.
  • Several uses of the racial slur "wetback" to describe a Hispanic character, including a scene where he discovers his car vandalized with the slur spray-painted on the hood and trunk.
  • 1 use of damn.
  • Three uses of "Jesus" as a curse word.

Alcohol, Drugs & Smoking

  • A teen boy is drunk or on drugs almost every time he's onscreen, no drugs are seen.

Frightening & Intense Scenes

  • Creepy, Unsettling feeling to the movie
  • The monsters in this movie are very frightening and can definitely shock and terrify young children. 10+ depending on the tween.
  • There are many effective jump scares. A few of them tend to drag out over time, making it scarier.
  • Some frightening scenes. Some unnerving concepts that may trigger response to personal trauma

Spoilers

The Parents Guide items below may give away important plot points.

Violence & Gore

  • A teen boy unintentionally eats a bloody soup that has a big toe & some of other body parts in it as well, gross & hard to watch because he has no idea what he's actually eating until later. He then spits on the floor & knocks the soup over, spilling lots of meat and small body parts all over the floor.
  • Chuck gets swallowed alive. (No blood, you just see the monster grab him into a hug as he screams for help, then the screams stop as his body gets absorbed by the monster. This scene is not gory, but very intense.
  • A man is killed by having his neck is broken by a monster. Very quick and not bloody.
  • Tommy gets stabbed with a rake by Harold and he starts throwing up hay and he turn into a scarecrow very disturbing.
  • Auggie eats a soup with a toe (he didn't know). Then an extremely scary monster drags him under the bed. Chuck is in a long hallway (anyone with Anxiety should not watch this scene) and a big, fat lady with long black hair and pale skin hugs him and he fade into her stomach (I found her quite funny, but a young child would be scared)
  • When the toe lady walks down the hallway I'm pretty sure that the bone can mildly be sticking out the foot

Frightening & Intense Scenes

  • Auggie eats a bloody soup that has body parts in it. The owner of the body parts (who is extremely scary) then comes after him, grabs him by the feet & drags him under the bed into darkness as he screams for help, but he's home alone. We don't see him for the rest of the movie, he is presumed dead.
  • Chuck is stuck in a hospital with many halls, a huge fat pale monster with long black hair, slit black eyes, & a huge thin plastered smile on her face stands at the end of each hallway, slowly walking towards him in every direction. He tries to run & find help, but the hospital is on lockdown. They all eventually close in on him & one of them stuffs him into her stomach, eating him whole as he screams for help. This is a hard scene to watch because we get to know & like the character. He is presumed dead & doesn't come back at the end of the movie. This was probably one of the scariest scenes in the movie.
  • The end can be depressing for some viewers
  • There is a creepy monster that is all in pieces that come together and fall apart at will. It will definately scare children.
  • A teen is chased (Very suspenseful) through a cornfield until being stabbed by a scarecrow, some veiwers may notice that instead of blood hay is sticking out of the wounds. This leads to an intense sequence were he is screaming and gagging as hay grows from his mouth and orifices, as he attempts to stumble home, possibly the most unsettling sequence do to its violating nature.
  • Chuck is trapped in a hallway and all the doors are locked. Then a creepy looking women comes in. The women is very frightening and it is even more frightening when Chuck is trapped and the women duplicates.
  • A boy talks about his brother being sent home in pieces from the Korean War. He is scared to go to war and a monster calls him a coward and mimics his brother by falling to pieces and coming together again at will. He goes to war at the end with no context of whether he lived or not.
  • A teenage girl finds a huge pimple on her cheek and attempts to squeeze it, but then we see something wriggling inside, and after moment, a small leg pokes through. The leg moves, and then, a crop of spiders burst out of the pimple, crawling out of her cheek in extreme close-up. Very disturbing, and NOT recommended for people with arachnophobia.

See also

Taglines | Plot Summary | Synopsis | Plot Keywords


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