31 Days of Halloween: Nightbooks

 2021, David Yarovesky (Brightburn) -- Netflix

Funny, last year we also seconded with a kids movie. Nightbooks is based on a children's book by JA White, about a witch who imprisons a young boy and forces him to read scary stories each night or suffer an end fate. The movie adaptation brings in Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones) in as Natacha, the witch who abodes within an apartment that travels the world, capturing kids for slave labour and stories. By the time Alex is taken, the massive other dimensional library she drew upon has been all but exhausted, and she needs Alex to write original stories. Its a cute movie, but I was really disappointed the apartment wasn't 23.

The movie begins with Alex (Winslow Fegley, Come Play) going through something. He's the kid into horror, with a bunch of posters from age-inappropriate movies on his wall, who is in the midst of tearing down everything, stuffing it into a bag to be burned in the apartment building's furnace. Something has gone wrong to dash his love of genre. But on his way down, he is charmed into an apartment showing The Lost Boys and offering pumpkin pie. I guess spells overran his horror movie common sense.

The apartment is grand, a place that moves from location to location grabbing kids as needed, with a lot more space inside than even a witch could afford in NYC. It is also very German decorated, hinting at the connection to Grimm's faery tales and Hansel & Gretel in particular. But something dire underlies the witch's desire for scary stories, something that shakes the place and her nerve. If the stories are not particularly bleak, the apartment reacts and Alex has to adjust. Between stories, Alex and fellow captive Yasmin (Lidya Jewett, Hidden Figures) are trying to find a secret to escape, some they don't end up like all the other kids who have come before -- being transformed into statuettes. I guess the tales of witches eating kids were just tales.

Alex is supposed to be that fandom kid, that kid overly into something other kids probably roll their eyes at. I was that kid, but into fantasy, into Lord of the Rings and D&D and Star Wars. In today's over abundance of genre choices, I wonder if kids would still get teased for enjoying anything. Or maybe any choice other than Marvel is to be reviled? It's not like kids need good reasons to bully others. I was somewhat disappointed that the reason for Alex's traumatic response at the beginning of the movie was rather benign, but I get it was intentional, to show us adults how impactful even the "smallest" events can have on the emotional life of a child. I cannot imagine how being captured by a witch and threatened with constant death will affect him in the long run.

The movie was fun and inventive and following suit with the neon & bright colours of current movie themes. The ever present pink (ultra violet) glow I have mentioned from previous movies has had other glow-in-the-dark colours added, giving much of the movie a rave-y kids' Pantone colouring to the movie. Its intentional; it works. It also has sufficent scares, and jumps and gross matter to accommodate even the most jaded kid. But unlike the movies Alex is into, this one is entirely kid-safe, nothing truly dire beneath the surface, beyond the consequences for the kids should they fail.