WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, in theaters now.
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark eschews a lot of easy horror tropes while recreating its well-trodden tales of terror. There's no waves of blood or piles of corpses. Although it can occasionally lean too far into jump scares, the creatures that make up the stories are all imaginative, unique and above all else -- scary. While they manage to dispatch many people, it's usually in new and surprising ways that make them stand out even more than before.
Here are all the most gruesome attacks and deaths in Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, and where they leave their intended targets.
Harold
Harold is introduced early in the film, initially nothing more than just a scarecrow. The scarecrow rests within the cornfields of Tommy Milner's (Austin Abrams) family farm. Tommy repeatedly beats it with a bat early in the film, clearly not a fan of the raggedy old thing. It's brought up that Tommy's never much liked the grotesque-looking scarecrow. That's partly what makes his ultimate fate at the hands of Harold so frightening. When Sarah Bellows's book begins writing new stories, the first one is about Tommy.
Late on Halloween night, a drunken Tommy walks through the cornfield. But he's quickly lost amidst the greenery, always seeming to come upon Harold again. To his shock, he eventually finds an empty stake where the scarecrow should be. Soon, Harold is chasing after Tommy. Tommy tries to use a pitchfork to kill the creature, but does nothing. Harold takes the pitchfork and uses it to stab Tommy through the chest. But instead of blood, hay spills out of the wound. Soon, Tommy is spitting up straw until he's overwhelmed by the substance. The next morning, there's a new scarecrow on the farm, one wearing Tommy's clothes. Tommy has become the new Harold, in a fitting piece of cruel irony.
The Spider Queen
Ruthie (Natalie Ganzhorn) is only briefly trapped in the Bellows house, but she's irrevocably changed by her experience with Sarah. Caught up in spider webs within the house, it's revealed that she received a bite from one of the arachnids. Mistaking the bite for acne, she tries to hide it so she can still take part in the school musical. But when it becomes too large to hide, she runs to a restroom to inspect it.
Ruthie notices a single black strand sticking out of it, and touches it. This causes it to start moving, bumping under her skin. Within seconds, the welt has burst open, and a deluge of spiders spring from her open wound. Ruthie is soon covered in spiders, which quickly begin biting her and crawling around the restroom. However, the others targeted by the book are able to see the story building within Sarah's book. They're able to find her and help get the spiders off her body before they overtake her fully. Although Ruthie spends some time in the mental hospital after the event, she's seen in the final moments of the film... now boasting a long scar down her cheek where the spiders burst out.
The Smiling Woman
Chuck (Austin Zajur) spends most of Scary Tales To Tell In The Dark terrified of what's going to come for him. When he was first in the Bellows house, he saw a red room with an old woman inside. After Auggie (Gabriel Rush) is dragged into the darkness and Ruthie has her episode with the spiders, Chuck becomes especially worried about what waits for him in a "red room." Because of this, he elects to stay behind while Stella and Ramón (Michael Garza) go into the records room, which happens to be titled the "RED Room".
This proves to be Chuck's downfall. While he's alone, he ends up in a seemingly empty hall. Alarms flash, turning everything red. Down the hall, Chuck is able to see some humanoid thing smiling at him. But no matter which hall he runs down, the Smiling Woman is always there, advancing ever closer. Eventually, she seems to be all around him, surrounding him and preventing escape. And when she reaches him... she hugs him. Chuck is just as surprised by this as the audience is, at least until the Smiling Woman pushes him further into her body. Within moments, she's fully absorbed the teenager, leaving no trace that he was there before suddenly disappearing. It's quietly the most unsettling sequence of the film.
The Jangly Man
The Jangly Man is the last major threat that targets Stella and Ramón, but it also might be the most frightening creature in the entire film. The Jangly Man can come in multiple pieces, initially only appearing as a head that comes down a chimney. But even when the body parts are strewn about, they're independent. They can also fuse back into a single body. This allows the Jangly Man incredible durability (how can you put it down once and for all if it can just reform?) and strange flexibility. It can squeeze through almost any opening, laughing the entire way.
Within moments of it first appearing, it's shown that bullets do nothing to it. It casually snaps the neck of Police Chief Turner (Gil Bellows), and throws his body at the teenagers. Since it came specifically for Ramón, he's able to lead the Jangly Man away. However, nothing he does can stop the creature, only slow it down. It eventually follows Ramón to the Bellows house and gets the drop on him. If it weren't for Stella finally getting through to the spirit of Sarah, it would have easily murdered Ramón.
Directed by André Øvredal, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark stars Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Abrams, Dean Norris, Gil Bellows, Lorraine Toussaint, Austin Zajur and Natalie Ganzhorn. The film is in theaters now.