If you grew up in the 1990s, you knew them. They were elementary school hot commodities; usually you had to sign up on the library’s waiting list just to get your hands on a copy. Alvin Schwartz’s “Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark” series was, at its heart, a repackaging of folk tales, urban legends, and campfire ghost stories — but to the wide-eyed gaze of a child in the days before the internet, these books were the holy grail of scaring yourself shitless.
Whether it was the open-endedness of a tale that really got you or the drippy, gruesome illustrations by Stephen Gammell, “Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark” left all the other ’90s kids horror in the dust. “Are You Afraid Of The Dark”? Creepy, but you could still sleep with the lights off. “Goosebumps”? Good for a few scares (and occasionally a few laughs) but…