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If you're my age...you'll understand.







I haven't been this excited for a film in a long time. This was one of "the" books to get at the book fair when I was in elementary school...they absolutely NAILED the art converting it to film.

This must be a US thing no? Ive never heard of it.

Never heard of it.

But I'm probably 20+ years out of the demographic.

Never herd of it. And that pimple part is yuck ugh..

Just thought id better post that important information.

This was a super-grim collection of stories (I think there were several books), but it was popular in the 80's-90's. It was decent writing, but was really sold by the classic creepy-as-feth artwork (which looks to be beautifully accurate in the film)

The art was predominantly done by Stephen Gammell (sp?)....and for an elementary school kid, was pretty terrifying. If I recall the stories weren't half-bad either.

I can confirm these books were a big deal in the US during the period specified.

These used to scare the piss out of me as a kid. Can’t wait!! If the movie does the books justice...this is going to be messed up!! And I don’t mean that in a bad way.

I don't know anything about these, but the trailer looks good.

I loved these things as a kid, had all the books and even had audio cassettes of them.

Looking back, I can't believe my parents let me read them. But then I was born on Halloween, so I naturally gravitated to the macabre gak for a big phase of my childhood.

Been following the development of this since it was first announced, but I haven't watched the trailers, as I want to go in fresh. Hope it does well.

And to add to why so many of us remember these, in the US (at least in my neck of the woods) Elementary schools has book fairs in their library. This particular book was almost taboo in its creepiness, so it had a big impression on those of us who were elementary school age in the 90s

The only thing I'm worried about is that since the book(s) were a collection of unrelated stories, I don't think it will translate well into a cohesive movie.
I mean it's clear that the premise is a bunch of kids that got a hold of a super natural version of the book that brings the stories to life, but that likely means tons of the stories we remember won't make the cut

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Yep, it was like the secret book they somehow let sneak into the Book Fair. Bonus points if you read it and claimed it as a book for "Book It" ....who doesn't love getting pizza for reading!?

To be fair, I have zero expectations it's going to be some marvelous film, but I'm really looking forward to it as a some popcorn fun.

 Galef wrote:

The only thing I'm worried about is that since the book(s) were a collection of unrelated stories, I don't think it will translate well into a cohesive movie.
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There are plenty of horror anthologies out there for them to get inspiration from, Trick-r-Treat probably being the benchmark of the more recent ones.

edit: I do share your fear though, as most anthologies are hit or miss with quality and pacing.

Tales from the Darkside: the Movie was an anthology movie that worked well. The formula seems easy to adapt. It's pretty much Arabian Nights with horror stories.

I very vaguely recall reading these books in Elementary School.

Never heard of this stuff. Here in Germany we had John Sinclair.

 Strg Alt wrote:
Never heard of this stuff. Here in Germany we had John Sinclair.

I thought he was from an old radio show..?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Never heard of this stuff. Here in Germany we had John Sinclair.

I thought he was from an old radio show..?

John Sinclair was a novel character and his exploits were also published as audio stories.

 nels1031 wrote:

 Galef wrote:

The only thing I'm worried about is that since the book(s) were a collection of unrelated stories, I don't think it will translate well into a cohesive movie.
-

There are plenty of horror anthologies out there for them to get inspiration from, Trick-r-Treat probably being the benchmark of the more recent ones.

edit: I do share your fear though, as most anthologies are hit or miss with quality and pacing.

I'm quite a fan of the horror anthology. Sure, they're a bit hit or miss, but at least if you get a miss it doesn't mean the whole picture is a bust.

Have particularly enjoyed the V/H/S pair from the last few years, albeit the format seems to have had its heyday.

I'm glad I never encountered this as a kid, it would have scared me so much! Goosebumps were the scary books from my childhood and I found them bad enough.

Goosebumps were the quivalent of the Little Mermaid compared to SStTitD. Goosebumps was fun, but not even remotely scary by comparison. My favorite was always the Wolfgirl one.

Kids!

When I was little, this guy was in a show aimed at elementary level children..

I never read these books, but I spent a lot of time working in bookstores, and these were very popular.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 nels1031 wrote:
But then I was born on Halloween

I think this is the most jealous I've ever been of someone before!

Yep. Candy, presents and costume party all wrapped in one for 37 years.

I had the version of the books that came with casette tapes to read along as they were read to you. The guy who did the audio versions voice is forever burned into my brain.

Will watch this movie.

Also while a lot of the stories were strait up horror (Shall we do it now? No, lets wait till Martin comes.)

Some were funny.

The viper. Ive come to vash and vipe your vindows.

I still tell The Viper at the campfire.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I can confirm these books were a big deal in the US during the period specified.

80s-90s?
Never heard of them

Galef wrote:And to add to why so many of us remember these, in the US (at least in my neck of the woods) Elementary schools has book fairs in their library. This particular book was almost taboo in its creepiness, so it had a big impression on those of us who were elementary school age in the 90

Ah. That explains it. I'm out the far side of the demographic.


Though I remember the 'viper,' from various outings. Always thought it was something cheesy from the 50s-60s.

Found the audio recordings.

This looks like good nostalgiagasm material. Made me dig out my copy of the books.

I actually started looking on eBay for some copies for my 11 year old nephew, though I don't know that his mom would agree with them...

 Elbows wrote:
I actually started looking on eBay for some copies for my 11 year old nephew, though I don't know that his mom would agree with them...

I wanna say... 8 years back or so?... they made a hard cover single volume collection of all 3 books. I was working in a book store when it came out and picked up copies for me and all my siblings and sent them around to them. If you can find that its much better then finding the old paperbacks which I am sure have not held up well over the years.