A young boy named Alex becomes the prisoner of a witch. To avoid certain death, he convinces her to let him tell her a scary story every night. Upon meeting the witch's servant, Yazmin, the two must use their wits to escape her apartment, a magical labyrinth filled with various dangers, before the witch kills them both.... (Full plot summary below)
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A young boy named Alex becomes the prisoner of a witch. To avoid certain death, he convinces her to let him tell her a scary story every night. Upon meeting the witch's servant, Yazmin, the two must use their wits to escape her apartment, a magical labyrinth filled with various dangers, before the witch kills them both.
Leave your thoughts about Nightbooks.
| Paste MagazineTara BennettBy story’s end, I was happy to spend time in this original story that treats younger audiences, and the horror genre, with respect. |
| VarietyScott TobiasIts whimsical touches, along with a reverence for creative young minds, gives the film a warmth that counterbalances its shocks. |
| The New York TimesNatalia WinkelmanIts devotion to frights makes it memorable. |
| IGNMatt FowlerKrysten Ritter, along with Winslow Fegley and Lidya Jewett, provide enough pizazz to keep Nightbooks afloat, creating an engaging supernatural hostage scenario. |
| Movie NationRoger MooreThrowing a lot of production design at the limp stories within this recycled tale doesn’t make it look or play scary. It just makes it loud and expensive looking. |
| User ReviewResetButtonThis is the best “kids” horror movie in years. All these negative reviews are coming from people who aren’t the target audience. The movie is too intense for anyone under 6, but if you’re looking for a good Halloween spooky movie that the entire family can watch, check it out. It goes up there with The Witches (1990) and Gremlins for PG horror movies. |
| User Reviewthiago777movie is good and Lidya Jewett is beautiful and works very well filme é bom e Lidya Jewett é linda e trabalha muito bem |
| User ReviewHellHoleHorrorThere are some really terrifying scenes but only once it feels like it goes too far for a younger audience. The near-perfect technical side of the production is only let down by some unconvincing cat CGI. Acting was excellent. Really great casting. Love the story and how it was told. The creative side of the production was only let down by some uneven pacing in the first half where it occasionally lost our attention. This is a great family horror, if you can take it! I loved the subtle The Evil Dead (1981) references. |
| User ReviewTheQuietGamerHorror for the whole family! I think the most impressive part of the movie for me is its opening. In a brief scene we are introduced to the young protagonist's struggle with fitting in and making friends entirely through the emotions being displayed by the incredibly talented child actor Winslow Fegley and the story being told in the environment. It stands out to me because it subtly lets the viewers know what's going via their own intuitions, rather than simply spelling it out for them the way any other film with kids in mind would. It also means Nightbooks wastes no time in getting going, as immediately after we see the character thrust into supernatural enslavement to a sadistic witch. What follows is admittedly not always as interesting. While the surprisingly frightening dark fantasy imagery and legitimate life-or-death stakes the middle school aged leads face ultimately kept me engaged until the credits rolled, I'd be lying if I said my attention didn't drift towards my phone during the actual plotting until the next big set piece kicked in. That's because the script is full of clichés which can be seen in its rather generic "stay true to yourself" message or really in the character of Yazmin as a whole. The biggest problem though might be Krysten Ritter. The former Jessica Jones star is having a bit too much fun hamming it up in her villainous role. Her exaggerated performance and the fact that she herself is just so darn sexy prevent her from ever being a menacing presence. A big difference from what we saw from Anne Hathaway a little less than a year prior. Still, while this may not have anything on Robert Zemeckis' remake of The Witches, if you're looking for something to bring the entire house together this Halloween season Nightbooks is one of the better options out there. Largely because of its little flourishes, such as the inclusion of Chvrches' beautiful cover of The Lost Boys theme song "Cry Little Sister" (the vampiric cult classic is acknowledged multiple times throughout), that make it clear director David Yarovesky is just as interested in pandering to the adults in the audience as he is in providing poop and barf gags for the kids watching. 7. |
| User Reviewbshu89For a long time now I’ve been saying we need more movies that can ease kids into horror. Going straight into the “good stuff” may be a little too unsettling for some kids. Nightbooks can easily be added to a list of great kid friendly, family friendly horror movie. The story touches on a lot of notes that I think are important for kids and adults alike to hear. Is the movie perfect? Far from. But there is a lot I appreciated about this movie. 1) Winslow Fegley again proves that incredible acting runs in the family. He and his brother, Oakes, are incredible young actors and I can’t wait to see where his career goes. 2) This movie, very ingeniously, covers a myriad of horror movie tropes. I appreciate this because it may help younger viewers find out what kind of scares they enjoy vs what is a little bit too much. It very much feels like this story would have been more well suited as a series. It feels very rushed in a few places. But, overall, it’s a delightful film. I’d say it’s well worth the watch. |
