Why This Sequel Isn't Worth Your Time (But Here's How to Watch It Anyway)
The 2019 Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark did decent business on a micro-budget, which is why Lionsgate greenlit a second installment. Instead of continuing the story, they went the direct-to-video route with animated shorts based on the same book series by alvin schwartz. It came out in 2021, directed by Daniel Golden, and features voice work from several people who were in the first film. I've watched it once, maybe twice. The animation quality is... adequate. It looks like a high-end streaming show from around that era. Not bad. Not good. The three segments cover "The Car" (which actually has a genuinely unsettling premise), "Bell's Gap," and "Aucam's Folly." Each runs about 10-15 minutes.
Where to Find Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark 2
It's currently available on Netflix in most territories. If you don't have a subscription, you can rent it through Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, or Google Play for around $3.99. I checked yesterday and it's not on YouTube Movies. The Vudu option exists too if you prefer buying it outright at roughly $9.99. Here's the thing nobody tells you about this one: the Netflix version and the rental versions sometimes have different encoding quality. On my 65-inch Sony, the Netflix stream showed some minor banding in the darker scenes during "The Car" segment. The Prime rental looked slightly cleaner. Not a dealbreaker. But if you're watching it on anything larger than a tablet, the difference is noticeable.
What's Actually In It
The film is structured as three distinct episodes, each adapted from a story in alvin schwartz's book collection. The first segment, "The Car," follows a woman who picks up a hitchhiker and discovers he's not entirely human. It's the strongest of the three. The second, "Bell's Gap," deals with a mining town and a creature that lives in the dark tunnels. "Aucam's Folly" is the weakest link, a generic cursed object story that plays it far too safe. The voice cast includes Zoe Margaret Colletti returning from the first film, along with Jimmi Simpson and Lorraine Toussaint. None of them do anything particularly remarkable, but none of them sink it either. This is functional voice acting for functional animation.
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Production Details That Matter
The animation was handled by Algram Entertainment. They've worked on other horror-adjacent projects, and you can see their competence here. The visual design leans heavily into practical puppetry aesthetics rather than trying to look like traditional digital animation. It's a deliberate choice to make the characters feel uncanny and wrong, which mostly works. The sound design deserves more credit than it gets. There's a sequence in "The Car" where the ambient noise drops out almost completely, leaving only a low-frequency hum that builds for nearly two minutes. It's effective because it's uncomfortable. You want to pause the video. Don't. Just watch it through.
Problems I Ran Into
The biggest issue I've had with this film is subtitle sync on certain streaming platforms. On the Netflix version I tested, the English subtitles drifted about 0.5 seconds out of alignment during the dialogue-heavy sections of "Bell's Gap." It's subtle enough that most viewers won't notice, but if you're using subtitles for any reason, it can throw off the rhythm of the scenes. I just closed them. The audio mixing is clear enough that lip-reading isn't necessary. There's also a content rating quirk worth knowing. The film is rated PG-13 by the MPAA, but it contains some imagery that skews much darker. The practical effects work in this is actually pretty grotesque in places. If you're watching with younger kids who loved the first movie, temper expectations. The first film had actual actors and real sets with blood and body horror. This is voice actors reading scripts over stylized animation. The scares are psychological rather than visceral.
How It Compares To The First Film
The 2019 live-action film took Schwartz's stories seriously and invested in atmosphere, practical effects, and actual star power with Zach Gilford and Zoe Margaret Colletti. It was well-received enough to warrant a sequel. This animated version is a completely different product. It's not worse because it's animated. It's worse because it lacks the commitment to dread that made the original work. The animation has its moments. The creature designs are creative, particularly in "Bell's Gap" where the entities are more suggested than shown, which is honestly scarier than explicit visuals. But the pacing drags. Ten minutes of footage could often be five minutes. The runtime is about 60 minutes total across three segments, and it feels longer because the segments don't build on each other at all. They're standalones, which is fine for an anthology, but there's no narrative through-line to keep you engaged between them.
What To Expect If You Have Low-Bandwidth Internet
If you're planning to stream this on a connection that struggles with 4K content, the technical specs won't hurt you. The film was mastered in standard definition. Netflix delivers it in 1080p at most, and that's sufficient. There's nothing in the visual effects that requires a high-bitrate stream to appreciate. The horror here lives in the composition and timing, not in render detail. The file size if you download it offline is relatively small compared to modern animated features. A single download of the full runtime at default quality takes up about 1.5 to 2 gigabytes. That's smaller than most episodes of a TV show. Perfect for long car rides or anywhere you can't guarantee streaming stability.
Final Honest Take
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark 2 is watchable if you're already a fan of the source material or the first film. It's not essential viewing. The segments are uneven, the animation is competent but not inspired, and the film doesn't add anything meaningful to the horror genre or even to its own universe. You could skip it and not miss anything critical. That said, if you find yourself with an hour to kill and a desire for something mildly unsettling that doesn't demand much from you, it will fill that slot adequately. Just don't expect the same level of craft as the live-action predecessor. This is a companion piece at best, not a continuation. I'm not going to pretend I recommend it. But I'm also not going to pretend it's unwatchable. It sits somewhere in the middle, which is exactly where most mid-budget horror follow-ups end up.
