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Nightbooks
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Wikipedia article
'Nightbooks' is a 2021 American dark fantasy film directed by David Yarovesky and written by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis. It is based on the 2018 horror-fantasy children's book of the same name by J. A. White. The film stars Winslow Fegley, Lidya Jewett, and Krysten Ritter.
'Nightbooks' was released on September 15, 2021, by Netflix.
Plot
Alex Mosher, a young boy from Brooklyn, New York, who loves to write scary stories, swears to never write another one again due to his parents' concerns about his mental health. He trashes his room and grabs his "Night books"his collection of self-written scary storiesand sneaks out of his apartment while his parents are talking. He takes the elevator to his complex's furnace to burn them. Before he reaches the furnace room, he passes an apartment with an open door that bewitches him into entering. The apartment door shuts behind him and disappears.
He awakens to find himself in the magical apartment of a witch named Natacha. She threatens him with her magic and informs him the apartment lures children into it and only those who are useful to her are kept alive. She is intrigued by Alex's penchant for writing scary stories and demands that he write her stories and read them to her each night, or she'll kill him. She puts him to work alongside a young girl named Yazmin, who was similarly lured into the apartment years ago in Washington and put to work as a housekeeper. Alex learns from Yazmin that the apartment moves around the world, and its only exits are the front and back door, which respond only to Natacha's magical keys.
Yazmin shows Alex the witch's enormous library, telling him Natacha has heard every scary story in it, which is why the witch gave him a task to write new ones. Alex is reluctant, saying he cannot write, though he will not tell her why. Yazmin informs him that Natacha's magical cat named Lenore, which can turn invisible, is spying on them and will tell her everything it sees.
Each night, Natacha is unimpressed with Alex's stories and demands they end unhappily. She also repeatedly requests Alex tell her the story of why he intended to burn his Night books, but Alex manages to dodge her requests by distracting her each time. While reading through the library's collection for inspiration, Alex encounters notes in the margins of various books written by another trapped girl detailing her attempts to escape the witch's home. Her treasured possession, a unicorn necklace, causes him to dub her "Unicorn Girl".
Yazmin and Alex begin to bond as they engage in their household tasks, and they eventually win over Lenore's trust. Yazmin tearfully reveals she was afraid to become friends with him because all the other children with whom she became friends were killed by being transformed into figurines held in Natacha's cabinet. Alex realizes each of the figurines still has their personal effects, such as watches and earrings they had in real life and deduces since none have a unicorn necklace, Unicorn Girl must successfully have managed to escape. He and Yazmin search through Unicorn Girl's notes and discover a recipe for a sleeping potion she used on the witch, intending to steal her keys. The pair make the potion and Lenore slips it into Natacha's perfume bottle, which she habitually douses herself in each night.
When she falls asleep, they steal her keys and open the door to a wooded area. They escape, but soon realize the woods are just another area contained within the apartment. Lost, they eventually find a cottage made of candy. Yazmin is lured by the cottage, influencing her to wander towards it mindlessly. When they enter, Yazmin starts taking candy off the walls and eats them, while Alex is reluctant. Alex ends up eating it too, due to the influencing of the magical candy cottage. They both fall unconscious onto the floor. When they wake up, they find themselves in the basement of the cottage with Natacha. There, Natacha reveals she was Unicorn Girl. She was lured in by the original witch, who she put to sleep to escape, only to find her parents had moved away. With nowhere to stay, she returns to the witch's home where she studied witchcraft under the witch and eventually managed to subdue her using her obsession with scary stories to lull her to sleep. The new tragic scary stories Alex reads her each night helps to keep the witch asleep, while Natacha harvests her magic in the form of the perfume bottles she uses. She threatens Yazmin and demands Alex tell her the story of why he intended to burn his Night books, stating his fear of telling the story makes it the ultimate scary story. Alex sadly starts to tell the story. On his birthday, his best friend admitted he was embarrassed to be seen with him because he was obsessed with scary stories. As a result, no one attended his birthday party; Alex felt so ashamed and hurt that he resolved to burn his stories and hide what made him special. This mollifies Natacha and the sleeping witch, but Alex ends the story by saying that he was glad he was kidnapped because he met Yazmin and Lenore, friends who value him and his uniqueness.
The sleeping witch is awoken by this happy ending and overpowers Natacha, who drops her perfume bottle. Yazmin grabs it and flees with Alex and Lenore. Using Natacha's magic, Yazmin opens the front door, allowing them to exit to Alex's apartment complex. The witch follows them as they flee to the furnace room, planning on eating them. Alex manages to distract her with a scary story he invented and before he can finish, he throws his Night book into the open furnace. The witch dives after it to know how the story ends while he and Yazmin push her in, killing her. They return to his worried parents and he introduces Yazmin and Lenore as his best friends. Yazmin is reunited with her parents.
They continue to be friends, with Yazmin giving him a new notebook and encouraging his passion for writing scary stories. Meanwhile, the children's figurines in Natacha's cabinet begin to move and break free, while Natacha cackles and it is revealed that she survived her fight with the witch.
Cast
* Winslow Fegley as Alex, a young boy with a penchant for scary stories who plots to escape the clutches of an evil witch.
* Lidya Jewett as Yazmin, a girl who was trapped and lured in by a witch years ago and is forced to be her housemaid until Alex enters her life.
* Krysten Ritter as Natacha, a witch who kidnaps children and is the captor of Alex and Yazmin.
Production
In June 2019, it was announced that Netflix was developing an adaptation of 'Nightbooks', with Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis writing the script. In October 2020, it was announced that Krysten Ritter, Winslow Fegley and Lidya Jewett would star in the film and that David Yarovesky would direct. The film was produced by Sam Raimi and Romel Adam through Ghost House Pictures, and by Mason Novick and Michelle Knudsen through MXN Entertainment.
Principal photography took place from October 14 to December 17, 2020, in Toronto.
Release
The film was released on Netflix on September 15, 2021.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 87% based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Its contents may be a bit busy and overly familiar, but 'Nightbooks' offers a funand actually fairly scarygateway to horror for younger viewers. " Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 65 out of 100 based on 5 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."
Meagan Navarro, writing for horror magazine 'Bloody Disgusting', gave the film three out of five stars, and specified that, "'Nightbooks' takes a while to warm up, but the back half brings the gateway horror fun," adding, "It's silly, whimsical, and creative, with a charming pair of leads. Its for the young and the young at heart, wrapping a very familiar tale in creative horror-fantasy packaging. Using 'The Lost Boys' song Cry Little Sister as a rallying anthem certainly helps."
References
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