Mischievously sinister "Nightbooks" gateway horror that hits the sweet spot

Nightbooks (2021)

If “The House with the Clock in Its Walls” and the two theatrical “Goosebumps” movies have inched back closer to the Amblin era, “Nightbooks” might just be your cup of hot apple cider for the spooky season. Based on the 2018 book by J.A. White, this is the kind of mischievously sinister gateway horror fantasy that doesn’t get made today as often as it should. The terror is mild but spooky enough, and when “Nightbooks” leans into that sweet spot, it takes one back to 1987’s trifecta of “The Gate,” “The Monster Squad,” and even the R-rated “The Lost Boys.”

Winslow Fegley (2020’s “Come Play”), brother of Oakes, plays the surrogate horror fan as Alex, a pre-teen boy who loves writing bone-chilling scary stories. He’s obsessed with everything scary so much that his parents are worried he’s alienating himself from kids his age. In a rage on Halloween, Alex tries running away, with all of his “nightbooks” in tow to burn in the basement furnace of his Brooklyn apartment building, but only makes it the elevator. He’s quickly lured into an apartment on another floor by “The Lost Boys” playing on a TV set and a slice of pumpkin pie. Next thing he knows Alex is a prisoner to a witch named Natacha (Krysten Ritter), who makes him tell her an original scary story every night. When he discovers a lost girl named Yazmin (Lidya Jewett) is also trapped in the apartment, Alex is their last hope to keep conjuring up storytelling nightmares without happy endings if they ever want to escape. 

“Nightbooks” may have two young people as its protagonists going up against a witch—the “Hansel and Gretel” comparison is not incidental—but director David Yarovesky (2019’s “Brightburn”) places plenty of goodies for adult genre fans to love. Within the first minute, many will adore spotting one-sheets of “The People Under the Stairs,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Candyman,” and a certain vampire flick on Alex’s bedroom walls. G Tom Mac’s haunting “Cry Little Sister” even gets its own music cue for a fist-bumping rally-together montage. Writers Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis (2019’s “The Curse of La Llorona”) celebrate creative storytelling as a survival tool and aren’t afraid to add a dose of melancholy. Though Alex’s stories are playfully imagined (his voice speaking for all of his characters), they get repeatedly criticized by Natacha for not being dark and cruel enough. Once he taps into actual truth, Alex being ostracized for loving something so niche is surprisingly poignant, coming through by Winslow Fegley’s assured performance. He and Lidya Jewett, as the self-possessed Yaz, also make a charming team. 

With early touches of Anjelica Huston’s cackle in “The Witches” and a bit of Miranda Priestly’s “you’re all useless to me” attitude, Krysten Ritter (Netflix’s “Jessica Jones”) relishes the part of blue-haired, platform boot-wearing witch Natacha. Perhaps it’s just a cute coincidence or the casting director was a huge fan of the biting Ritter in “Don’t Trust the B- - - - in Apartment 23,” but Ritter is just as deliciously wicked and intimidating as she needs to be before receiving a little more nuance than expected. Imagine Annie Wilkes as an actual witch with magical powers, and you have another villainess threatening her prisoner with deadlines but truth over idealistic conclusions.

Set entirely within Natacha’s apartment, including its endless library of scary stories, subterranean dungeon, and an ultraviolet-lit garden, “Nightbooks” makes the most of its production design. The mix of practical effects and CGI is pretty smooth, including Natacha’s invisible sphynx cat Lenore and toothy arachnids called “shredders,” and there are some welcome junior touches of Sam Raimi (he and his Ghost Pictures production company are credited after all), “Drag Me to Hell” specifically. Aside from an admittedly amusing gag involving Natacha’s invisible cat’s visible poop and some needless, conspicuous ADR, the film still, on the whole, doesn’t feel the need to pander or talk down to its audience. “Nightbooks” is engaging and satisfying as a one-off, but as it does leave room for more Natacha, one wouldn’t shudder at more adventures with Alex and Yaz.

Grade: B

Netflix is releasing “Nightbooks” (100 min.) to stream on September 15, 2021.