Scary Stories To Traumatize Children And Ruin Their Formative Years

Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark is a series of children's books written by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell. Most children of the eighties and nineties are familiar with these books, which include such family friendy gems as "Wait Until Martin Comes" and "Room For One More." But unlike most childhood memories, which induce nostalgia accompanied by either fuzziness (aww, I miss when Daddy took us out for Happy Meals) or embarrassment (track suits were actually a thing?), the consensus of most readers is that these books did little more than send them into a downward spiral of clinical madness. Now, that's not actually due the content of the stories, which are neither scary nor pornographic, but the fucking illustrations. Seriously have you SEEN these things?

Behold the nightmare fuel:


WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS GODDAMN CORPSE BRIDE BULLSHIT, I LITERALLY HAD TO COVER THE SCREEN WHILE I COPIED THE URL JESUS



This was the COVER of one of the books, as in, A BOOK WHICH WAS DISPLAYED IN CHILDRENS' LIBRARIES AROUND THE FUCKING COUNTRY. As in, parents somehow got past this acid-trip-gone-wrong and decided Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark would be totally appropriate for their small child. This image was actually the inspiration for this post, as I am currently experiencing a dramatic reading of its collection of tales.

I'll edit in a video later, but for now I will conclude with the following: This Lifetime drama about a dumb bitch and her alcoholic husband(?) who rape and torture people is actually preferable to previewing this post and having to see Stephen Gammell's horrifying rendition of a goddamn clown tree. So now I shall go be absorbed by what will probably be the subject of my next entry.

Until then, discourage your children from reading!