Macabre…ish Horror Review: Nightbooks

Nightbooks, 2021/ 1 hr 43 min

A creative child, Alex (Winslow Fegley), who loves horror and has a knack for writing horror stories, suddenly wants to quit. And he storms out of his house to destroy his books and into a nightmare. He enters another apartment in his building and isn’t allowed to leave, there is no escape. Inside lives a witch, Natacha (Krysten Ritter), who demands to know if there is anything special about him, anything at all. If so, she’ll let him live.

He confesses his ability to write and she demands a scary story every night or it will be the last thing he ever does. The next morning he looks around the place, the tv and front door have both disappeared. There is also Natasha’s Nightmare Nursery and an impossibly massive library in the apartment, many stories high and filled with thousands of books.

Also in the house is a little spy, Lenore, half ghost, half hairless cat, Natacha’s eyes and ears. Also in the house, a girl, Yazmin (Lidya Jewett), she’s also trapped there. She explains that the apartment moves around the world and it lures and traps kids. And there were others, many other kids but they are gone now.

Yazmin explains that this is his life now. Forget his other life, forget his family, this…writing stories… is his new existence. These stories need to be scary and no happy endings. Natacha hates a happy ending.

Inside the library, Alex finds that someone has been writing in random books, the story of how they came to be there and thoughts about escaping. Alex becomes obsessed with reading that story. The child who wrote that story found a way out.

There were other kids but Natacha took her wraith out on them and now they’re on her mantle. But there’s a lot more to this story, Natacha, Lenore, this place is not quite what it seems. If they can figure out the truth, then they may have a chance.

This was a fun fantasy horror! It’s a good story with good pacing and good effects. There is no nudity or adult scenes. Kid friendly! The one thing that was a little annoying was some of the score but that’s about it. I also enjoyed the few twists and the end!