Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (

2019

)

One of the first images the audience sees in Scary Stories to tell in the Dark, is a campaign poster for Richard Nixon, defaced by a swastika. The vandal was either very dedicated or very bored because as the shot pulls out we see that every poster on the wall has been defaced in the same way. At this point in the film, I figured this was merely a way of establishing the setting (that the year is 1968) and score the odd liberal virtue signal ('everyone who doesn't share my political beliefs is a nazi #resist') and thought little of it. After all, jabs at Richard Nixon are hardly unusual for Hollywood movies, and between All the President's Men (1976), Secret Honor (1984), Frost/Nixon (2008), and (best of all by a mile) Dick (1999), they practically constitute a sub-genre of their own (Dicksploitation?). Yet as the film progressed, this image took on new, and fascinating meanings. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is only incidentally interested in being a teen horror film and doing justice to the scary stories of Alvin Schwartz and the macabre illustrations of Stephen Gammell. Monsters and situations from the books show up occasionally, but they could have easily been replaced with Frankenstein and the wolfman and you wouldn't have lost much effect. The real aim of this film is to deliver a subversive message that, no doubt, much of Hollywood would be horrified by: That Richard Nixon wasn't all bad

When the film starts, we are told by our Teenage protagonists, Stella Nicholls and her gang of nerdy hangers-on, that Sarah Bellows was the deformed daughter of a local industrial magnate. She was locked away in the darkest room of the Bellows manor and would tell spooky stories to children that passed by the wall of her cell. Sarah Bellows was a monster, we're assured, who occasionally broke free of her family's restraints, and hunted down the children who listened to her ghost stories, killing them in gruesome fashion and using their blood to pen new tales for her book. The stupid horror movie teens, being stupid horror movie teens, not only go to the run down Bellows estate on Halloween night but also steal Sarah's book. In short order, the book begins to spontaneously write new stories, each one starring one of the teens that disturbed the book's rest. As members of the gang start dying off one by one, Stella and the remnants search desperately for answers about Sarah Bellows in an attempt to break the curse. Who was she, and why does her ghost torment them so mercilessly? It isn't long before they discover the truth, that Sarah Bellows was a poor mistreated wretch, completely innocent of any misdeed but unjustly framed for a series of deaths by her family and locked away in an insane asylum. To escape her constant torments and electroshock treatments, Bellows hung herself with her own hair. In time a legend grew up around Sarah Bellows that only resembled reality in the faintest of ways. She was a victim of her circumstances, yet local legend conspired to transform her into a monster. The horror only relents when Stella offers to tell Sarah's story and let the world know who she really was and how she was mistreated.

Nixon too was a man whose real self seems hidden by the popular history swirling around him. He was, after all, the president that successfully brought the People's Republic of China into the Western sphere of influence. The President that spearheaded the Detente movement, the first real easing of tensions in the Cold War as well as the SALT Treaty which limited the number of atomic weapons each superpower could possess. He's the man who ended American involvement in the disastrous Vietnam war, not as soon as many (myself included) would have liked, but at least it was an end all the same. His accomplishments should put him shoulder to shoulder with at least the upper quadrille of presidents. Yet Nixon is confined to the dust-bin of history, thanks in no small part to his policy of spying on political opponents and trying to cover it up. Even more damning, Nixon is now forced to shoulder a disproportional amount of blame for the Vietnam War, despite not even holding an office when Kennedy and Johnson started the conflict (he dubbed most of the 1960s as his wilderness years). Nixon today, is in much the same position as Sarah Bellows; he's become a bogeyman that has to play the role of one-dimensional bad-guy for people averse to history's complicated angels. Whenever he appears in popular media today, he will either manifest as an outright villain or an obscene joke. I doubt that any other modern political figure (aside from the progressive's current Great Satan: Trump) would ever be treated the way Nixon is in Black Dynamite (2009) or Futurama. The poster at the film's beginning becomes visual shorthand for Nixon's whole political career, the actual substance of his time in office has been eclipsed by an ugly and unfounded smear.

To top it all off, when we finally catch a glimpse of Sarah Bellows free from the gloom and camera tricks that have thus far obscured, we see a strange visage. In the story, Sarah was a wronged little girl, whose family cruelly used and abused her. One would expect such a creature to look wispy and fragile, like the witch from Paranorman (2012), a form that would stress both her vulnerability and her innocence. Yet Sarah Bellows' face is thick and jowly, with a permanent scowl fixed upon her lips, not unlike a certain much-reviled president. Her features are so hard and masculine that when I first told my wife that I had a “wild theory” about this movie she guessed “is Sarah Bellows trans?” Obviously, this is not a one-to-one comparison, but her physical resemblance to Nixon's is significant given the way their stories resemble each other.

Given how much Bellows and Nixon resemble each another, setting the film in 1968 cannot be an accident. Sure, with the success of Stranger Things and It (2017), horror set in the nostalgic haze of yesteryear is unquestionably popular. However, both those examples are set in the 1980s, putting them smack dab in the middle of the childhood for the prime film-going audiences. Indeed, in the novel that It (2017) was based on, the setting was the 1950s, the movie updated this to the 1980s with a cynical eye on the bottom line. Sure, there are a few people with genuine nostalgia for the mid-century, as well as people who find the period interesting, but they are decidedly a minority opinion. Someone who was the same age as the character on Stranger Things would be in their mid-40s now; by contrast, someone who was the same age as the protagonists in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark would be pushing 70 now! Hardly the most coveted demographic for the film studios, especially when it comes to horror movies. Producer Guillermo del Toro explains away the setting with what amounts to a non-answer “It's a coming-of-age story set in a crucial point in American history. This is the end of childhood for the kids, and awakening time for the United States. The movie is not in any means a political statement...” Yet I think there is more to it than that, there are, after all, dozens of “crucial points in American history.” Why not in the shadow of 9/11, a historical event that most of the target audience of the book Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark would actually remember? Why go back 13 years before the source book was even published? Nor is this done just for the sake of giving the film a certain period coloring, if that were the case there wouldn't be the constant reminding of the time and place. The lingering dread of the Vietnam War or the constant appearance of Nixon on TV screens (with nary a sight of Wallace or Humphrey I might add even though in the run-up to the election they were probably given ample screen-time). The setting is no mere accident or marketing ploy foisted upon the filmmakers by the studio, instead, it represents a deliberate choice on the part of director André Øvredal, and screenwriters Dan and Kevin Hageman.

Setting the film in 1968, with the Vietnam War already raging, also allows the filmmakers to dispel the popular assumption that Nixon was responsible for the horrors of the Vietnam War. We see Nixon running for president, and already young men and boys are being called up for the draft and sent abroad. Indeed one of the film's main characters, Ramon, is a draft dodger, so presumably, this has been going on for some time and word of just how bad it is in the jungle of Nam has filtered back to the home-front. It should then be obvious to even the most historically ignorant audiences that Vietnam has started some years earlier, and when Nixon stepped into office after the 1968 elections he was merely inheriting a mess left for him by his incompetent and bellicose predecessors. Personally, I have to wonder how many products of the public schools will scratch their heads in confusion when they see the war playing out alongside the election of Richard Nixon. Didn't he start the Vietnam War, they might ask before looking into the topic critically for the first time in their young lives. The cleverer ones in the audience will probably wonder why, during the movie's coverage of the 1968 election, there are three candidates instead of the normal two. A bit of research may lead them to discover that he democratic party was split that year between the hardcore segregationists and those that followed LBJ's plan to “have those [blacks] voting Democratic for 200 years!” For many of them, it will probably be the first time they've learned anything about this period of history that wasn't outright propaganda.

Now such an unpopular political message could not be told directly, certainly not under the aegis of Guillermo del Toro, a liberal so naive that he can imagine no monster more horrific (even with his considerable gift for such visions) than a mid-century American breadwinner. Nothing can be started directly, but those of us that have cracked a history book since high school can easily fill in the blanks. It reminds me of the old communist screenwriters during Hollywood's golden age, carefully inserting their ideology into the films in a way that was subtle enough so the studio heads didn't notice but obvious to the members of the audience. However, they scarcely needed to bother with the concealment, so complete is the liberal echo chamber in Hollywood and the chattering classes that review their work that they are effectively blind to any foreign ideas. Indeed, nearly every review I've read of the movie that mentions Nixon at all points to him as some form of ultimate evil lurking in the shadows, something far more terrifying than any of the actual monsters. Syfy Wire, for instance just says it right in the title of their review: “Richard Nixon and Vietnam are Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark's Strangest Monsters.” They go on to note that “Some of the voting-age side characters comment on the election too, and generally, the more likable ones are rooting against Nixon while the more bullying or casually racist characters think he's the one” which is as near as I can tell a complete fabrication. Nobody expresses any support for Nixon whatsoever. The town's racist sheriff does have a bet going that Nixon will win, he never expresses any support for the nominee and could easily be just a shrewd gambler, exploiting the emotions of his mark. Also, one side character who is not particularly likable (indeed, who has no personality whatsoever) says she wouldn't trust a president with the nickname “Tricky Dicky.” Inverse's comment on the film is even more bone-headed and reflects how deep the anti-Nixon historical message is because those dummies somehow missed the constant election coverage and determined that since the Vietnam War is raging, Nixon must already be president. Observer makes a similar mistake, claiming that Nixon is running for reelection in 1968, which makes me wonder if they somehow think that Nixon was awarded a third term so he could resign in 1974. Such critics are so averse to a pro-Nixon message that they could not even imagine one in their wildest fantasies.

For me, such an elaborate defense of Richard Nixon seems unnecessary. Nixon's accomplishments endure, despite the active attempts to bury them in the sands of history. Anyone who makes a serious study of recent American history (IE more than the bare minimum required to win an online argument) will be able to accurately gauge his significance. Moreover, the reason for his removal from office was, in my opinion, completely just. The president should not be allowed to spy, will-nilly, on American citizens. Sure, modern presidents in the wake of 9/11 have done far worse to a far broader spectrum of American citizens, but their bad behavior is no excuse for Nixon's illegal actions. Nobody, especially not the President, should be able to break the law with impunity. While Nixon was not responsible for the Vietnam War, he does bear the responsibility for not ending it sooner. Having taken office, he should have immediately sought to extricate American forces from Kennedy and Johnson's doomed adventure in South East Asia, just as his former running mate, Dwight Eisenhower, did for the pointless bloody quagmire he inherited in Korea. His attempts to win the war and leave the region on his terms cost thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. Worse still, it accomplished nothing and only delayed the inevitable at considerable cost. Nixon's position in the toilet bowl of history does not trouble me much, but that's just my opinion on American history. For the filmmakers of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, it is obviously a much more serious matter, and they have resolved to “tell the story” of one of the most unjustly hated presidents of the 20th century. For that, I salute them, even if I don't agree with them 100%. It takes a good deal of bravery to make a film with such a message.

Alright, that's enough blithering about political subtext, now we answer the real question: Is the movie any good? The answer is a resounding: No, not really. The biggest problem is that so much time and energy is given to the frame narrative, which aside from the Nixon apologia, isn't really anything interesting. It's the same old story of unfortunate teens being gradually murdered by long-forgotten horror, as they race against time to figure out the mystery and save their lives. This would be fine, but after the first couple of deaths, the frame narrative begins to positively smother the individual adaptations of Alvin Schwartz's spooky stories. These tales often thrive on the physical sense of isolation and lose much of their impact when the film is constantly cutting back to the other characters racing to save their friends. In the worse case, these stories are stripped of all their horrific context and feel completely nonsensical. It's saved, somewhat, by the superb monster design that has done about as good a job you could have asked of pulling the ghoulish images off of the page. Still, I wish that the film had been less fixated on its pro-Nixon message and simply gone the obvious route of adapting the book: IE making a straightforward anthology film with a series of self-contained segments, each one adapting a single story from the source material. The film would have been far stronger if the filmmakers had kept the framing narrative slim, or even go so far as to have the fucking Crypt Keeper introduce each new segment with a ghoulish laugh.