CBS Films has released the official trailer for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the big-screen horror flick based on the Alvin Schwartz book series that was banned in certain suburban corners of America in the 1990s. Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro produced the project and conceived the story with Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan (Saw IV, V, and VI). The big-screen adaptation has André Øvredal (The Autopsy of Jane Doe) in the director's chair and a script by Trollhunters writers Dan and Kevin Hageman.

The story conceit here is that the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark book exists in a haunted house, and a group of kids finds it and begins to discover that each story starts coming to life as they read it. That's a pretty smart way of turning an anthology book like this into a cohesive film, and the frights are aplenty in this here trailer. What really grabs me, though, is how well the illustrations have been turned into living nightmares. Can't wait.

Check out the new Scary Stores to Tell in the Dark trailer below. The cast of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark includes Zoe Colletti (Annie), Gabriel Rush (The Grand Budapest Hotel), Austin Abrams (The Americans), Austin Zajur (Kidding), and Natalie Ganzhorn (The Stanley Dynamic), with Breaking Bad alumnus Dean Norris on board alongside the horror icon-in-the-making, Javier Botet, who has played the Leper in IT, the title character in Slender Man, a Wight in Game of Thrones and much, much more. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark hits theaters on August 9th.

Here’s the official synopsis for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark:

 It’s 1968 in America. Change is blowing in the wind…but seemingly far removed from the unrest in the cities is the small town of Mill Valley where for generations, the shadow of the Bellows family has loomed large. It is in their mansion on the edge of town that Sarah, a young girl with horrible secrets, turned her tortured life into a series of scary stories, written in a book that has transcended time—stories that have a way of becoming all too real for a group of teenagers who discover Sarah’s terrifying home.

 

For more of our coverage of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, be sure to click on these links to recent write-ups ... unless you're too scared:

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Image via CBS Films, Lionsgate