Luke McWilliams gives his review of the 2021 fantasy film, Nightbooks, starring Winslow Fegley and Lidya Jewett.
In a Brooklyn apartment, young Alex Mosher (Winslow Fegley) is distraught that none of his friends have attended his horror-themed birthday party. In a rage, Alex trashes his room and swears to never write another scary story again. Absconding from his arguing parents, Alex heads for the apartment complex’s furnace to burn his collection of scary stories. On the way, however, Alex is bewitched into a neighbouring apartment belonging to the witch Natacha (Krysten Ritter).
Netflix’s horror slate weighs heavily into 1980s and 1990s nostalgia of the genre through Stranger Things, Fear Street, and The Final Girls. Nightbooks feels more organic due to the lead being a self-confessed horror fan; watching The Lost Boys, having its poster on the wall with its theme song playing throughout. Like Sebastian in The Never Ending Story, Alex escapes his home life by running into a never-ending scary storytelling session, lest he is killed by an unsatisfied witch. Krysten Ritter’s witch, and her apartment, have shades of Eva Green in Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, and when the adventure hits its stride in the third act, the makers of The Evil Dead do what they do best!
Verdict: While containing all the makings of a classic, the movie nullifies its potential emotional heights, probably in an attempt to play to the widest possible audience as is the want these days, especially in streaming ‘cinema’. 3.5 stars.
Nightbooks is streaming on Netflix.
- Luke McWilliams | themovieclub.net
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