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Parents' Guide to

Where the Scary Things Are

By Brian Costello, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Bullying, violence in unoriginal teen horror tale.

Movie R 2022 97 minutes
Where the Scary Things Are Movie Poster

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

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age 15+

Based on 5 parent reviews

S G.
S G. Adult
January 29, 2023
age 14+

Directors are obviously creeps

For a moment, let's not talk about how literally everything is wrong and horrible with this film and discuss how big of creeps the adults involved with this film are. I don't know how old the actors are, but they are supposed to be playing young school kids. One character, the annoying one with the giant teeth, looks like he's literally a child. There are sexually suggestive scenes with that child directly involved. For some unknown reason, these creeps thought it was a good idea to do a montage that involves two of the characters making out and undressing in a pre-sex type scene that went on for WAY too long. It made me so uncomfortable that I had to fast forward the movie. Someone needs to interview these actors and look into every adult involved in writing, approving, and filming this stuff. You can't tell me they're not pedophiles. No normal, not sick in the head person would write and film such scenes involving actual kids or perceived kids. I was so excited that this was filmed at Field of Screams as I've been there many times, and that the production team was local. That excitement quickly faded once I realized the production team was a bunch of creeps. 🤢
celesteriv
celesteriv Parent of 11-year-old
November 4, 2022
age 14+

Had so much potential.

Most of the kid actors are new and ok... the girl was trying too hard to be cool/scary/crazy/angry or whatever she was attempting... it was hard to watch her try to act. The writer missed his attempts at writing for YA... if the boys weren't decent actors the whole thing would have fallen apart . It reminded me of a scary attempt at recreating the Goonie... missed the mark. My kids just didn't care about this one.
See all 5 parent reviews

What's the Story?

In WHERE THE SCARY THINGS ARE, the Dockers are a group of teens who are trying to use their internet savvy to get ahead, or to at least get what they want. But what they really want is to make viral videos. Bran, the youngest and brattiest, uses his camera to film "bum fights" in the hopes of getting millions of hits and a monetized streaming channel. Along with Bran, Ayla (Selina Flanscha), Snack (Peter Cote), Max, Scribble (Oliver Givens), and Mighty spend their free time hanging out and getting into trouble at "Field of Screams," a "haunted" Halloween theme park closed for the season. But when their teacher leads a classroom discussion on urban legends and gives the students a project to create their own urban legend and make it go viral on the internet, the teens set out to do just that, coming up with a monster that's a variation on the local urban legend of the monster "Lockjaw." Their fortunes take an unexpected turn when they actually discover a monster lurking in the theme park. After finding a way to chain it up in one of the side rooms, they begin filming videos. The videos become popular and earn them high grades in class, but as the viewing audience begins to make increasingly skeptical comments on how "fake" these videos are, the teens go to more extreme and gruesome lengths to come up with content that will shut up the naysayers.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (5 ):
Kids say (4 ):

This is a teen supernatural horror movie that wears its influences on its blood-drenched sleeves. Where the Scary Things Are is a low-budget horror that comes across as a little too on the nose in its nods to similar stories from the past and present of teens getting into deadly trouble. While it's common for directors to give winks, nods, and tips of the cap to their influences, they also take those influences and make them their own. This movie doesn't quite achieve anything original -- and the closest it gets is making the teens so thoroughly unlikable they're not even entertaining. That said, this proves why teens in movies like these are usually "scrappy" or "misfits" instead of the bullies in this one.

It's an attempt to make a comment on how the internet is changing how we interact and empathize (or don't empathize) with others, and the lengths some will go to in order to find internet fame. Fair enough, but the characters are annoying and the story is uneven, so most viewers won't even notice the attempted message.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about horror movies like Where the Scary Things Are. How is this similar to and different from other horror and supernatural stories centered on teens?

  • How does Where the Scary Things Are address themes of cyberbullying, bullying in real life, and the lengths some will go to in order to become "internet famous"?

  • Can characters be bad people and still be likable or at least entertaining? Why, or why not?

Movie Details

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Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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