Nightbooks: A shivery read

Nightbooks (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated TV-PG, for suspenseful intensity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

This is a delightful bit of family-friendly frights.

 

Director David Yarovesky’s modest chiller is adapted from J.A. White’s 2018 young adult novel of the same title, which is a modern — and spooky — riff on the ancient saga of Scheherazade (who, you’ll recall, kept herself alive by starting a story at the end of each of 1,001 Arabian nights, concluding it the following evening, and then starting another).

 

While exploring their captor's massive library, Alex (Winslow Fegley) and Yasmin
(Lidya Jewett) find scribbled notations on the pages of one book: perhaps clues
on how to escape?

Nightbooks is co-produced by Sam Raimi, who made his rep with the extremely gory Evil Dead series, but this little film stays within its TV-PG rating. That said, the final 20 minutes get rather intense, and may be too much for the youngest viewers.

Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis’ script hews closely to White’s novel, including the stories-within-the-story element, and the essential moral: that it’s always important to be true to one’s self.

 

Young Alex (Winslow Fegley, remembered from last year’s Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made) has long loved scary stuff. His bedroom is a shrine to pop-culture movies and TV shows, and his doting parents (Jess Brown and Mathieu Bourassa) have cheerfully indulged this passion, even to the point of occasionally dressing up and transforming their apartment into a haunted house.

 

Alex — a budding Stephen King — also has written many of his own scary stories, carefully preserved in a stack of Nightbooks.

 

But, as the story begins, Alex has just hit a crisis. Tired of being teased at school for the unusual way he dresses, humiliated by having been tagged with the nickname Creepshow, he rashly decides to destroy his life’s work. He gathers up his Nightbooks, runs to the elevator and punches the button for the basement, intending to hurl his notebooks into the boiler room furnace.

 

The elevator stops elsewhere, opening onto a mysterious, spookily illuminated hallway. He’s drawn to apartment 4B; once inside, the door vanishes behind him.

 

This is the home of Natacha (Krysten Ritter), a sinister witch with a fondness for runway glam outfits. (Costume designer Autumn Steed had a good time.) She’s accompanied by Lenore, a creepy, hairless Sphinx cat with the ability to turn invisible. Having somehow learned of Alex’s talent for spinning terror tales, Natacha commands him to tell her a story.

 

She further warns that if his story isn’t scary enough, he’ll meet a dire fate … typified by the disturbingly life-like, doll-size figurines of children placed on a shelf.

 

And so, (fortunately) armed with his Nightbooks, Alex tells a story — “The Playground” — which we watch in animator Mary Yang’s deliberately retro, low-tech style.

 

The telling doesn’t unfold smoothly; Natacha keeps interrupting, editing Alex’s narrative elements, or simply insisting “That isn’t scary.” These exchanges are quite droll, thanks to Ritter’s exaggerated haughtiness and Fegley’s persuasive blend of confusion and terror.

 

Alex succeeds, and survives the night.

 

By day, he’s allowed to wander at will through Natacha’s magically immense apartment. Production designer Anastasia Masaro went wild with all the sinister bric-a-brac, particularly the huge library, which rises skyward to impossible heights. Lenore keeps a sharp eye on Alex the entire time.

 

He meets Yasmin (Lidya Jewett), another trapped adolescent; she answers many of his questions, and confirms that there’s no way out, and that he’ll have to keep telling stories to avoid being killed. (It’s never made clear what she does to stay alive.) Although initially aloof — she’s a bit older — as the days pass, and Alex successfully placates Natacha with his stories, Yasmin comes to respect his intelligence, talent and resourcefulness. They become friends.

 

So, the challenge: How to escape this odd and frightening predicament?

 

Ritter has a great time as the flamboyant, larger-than-life Natacha, chewing up the scenery — and her dialogue — with considerable panache. She’s by turns mocking and menacing, with an imperious manner that’s both amusing and unsettling.

 

At first blush, Fegley gives Alex the bearing and behavior of a classic nerd, with the hunched shoulders and wary expression resulting from years of being considered an outcast. But Fegley’s performance becomes more resolute and thoughtful, as Alex “works the problem” while the days pass. He also remains credible; nothing he does, as the film progresses, is beyond any similarly aged kid’s ability.

 

Jewett’s Yasmin is a bit bolder. She’s gutsy, inquisitive and quite helpful; she knows Natacha’s lair very well, having had plenty of time to explore it. (We wonder how much time.) Jewett makes her a solid partner; she isn’t one to scream unnecessarily or jump at shadows.

 

The film’s first two acts establish a routine: tell a story, explore, plot escape. Just as we begin to wonder where this will lead, Daughtry and Iaconis hurl us into a bonkers third act — more intense, and much more terrifying — lifted from the Brothers Grimm: most specifically, “Hansel and Gretel.”

 

And if you’ve decided that Ritter’s Natacha isn’t really all that scary, well … just wait.

 

Yarovesky and editor Peter Gvozdas keep things moving; the pace never drags, and the third act is impressively suspenseful and exciting. Michael Abels’ score deftly enhances the ookie-spookie atmosphere.

This’ll be a lot of fun to watch on Halloween night. And on any other night.