I remember my first scary movie at a sleepover. I was 10, and I saw Tim Curry’s It. Suffice to say, I’m perpetually wary of clowns to this day; that’s the power that experience held over me. The horror genre is replete with adult situations and images, making it a genre children want to get into, but hard for them to see without becoming traumatized or growing up too early. 10 year olds need a gateway horror film to pave the road to James Wan’s demented mind. And that’s what Nightbooks is for; it’s a perfect sleepover movie for some parent to throw on and scare kids but not traumatize them and get angry phone calls from other parents.
On what was an already tough night for him, a kid named Alex (Winslow Fegley) gets lured into Apt 4E in his Brooklyn Apt by pumpkin pie and horror movies on TV. Before he realizes, Alex is trapped in this apartment by Natacha (Krysten Ritter), a witch with evil intent for our young hero. Alex intrigues Natacha by telling her he’s a storyteller; so Natacha demands Alex tell her a story every night, or risk something terrible happening to him. Alex knows Natacha means business because there’s another prisoner in this apartment, Yaz (Lydia Jewett), who catches Alex up on all the sinister goings on in Apartment 4E.
Nightbooks has a tricky tightrope to pull off. The story’s clearly aimed at that 10 year old demo I mentioned, so the movie has to walk this line that makes it the right balance of scary and fun. The team behind the scenes decides most of the scares are either left to the imagination or totally fantastical. There’s lots of creepy dolls, shapeshifting creatures, and reminders of other fairy tales that kids will understand without the writers spelling out what is going on so kids can finish those thoughts with their own fears in their heads. The fantastical scenes are so looney, that kids will not be traumatized because there’s no frame of reference to a blue haired witch cackling demands; Krysten Ritter has a blast being a cartoon villain here, finding the right amount of ham to put on this horror movie sandwich. The third act gets a little CGI crazy, but at least it plays around with expectations, and has some twists a kid might not see coming because they’re not as familiar with how movies work yet.
Most importantly, every problem in Nightbooks is a problem most kids will relate to. Alex’s big issue revolves around being the weird kid in school, and how he has to deal with the fallout of that. Yaz has to learn about what true friendship looks like, and how to trust other people when she’s been hurt by people she cares about. Hell even Natacha has to learn that not all stories have to have happy endings. Even though these ideas are aimed at kids, Nightbooks takes those problems seriously, and solves them smartly, like how Alex and Yaz have to extract information from the more powerful Natacha to try to escape. This should help the kids root for the kid heroes because they see qualities in the characters inside of themselves.
I look forward to more streaming attempts at gateway horror movies. With Fear Street and now Nightbooks, Netflix is ruling the genre at the moment. That Goosebumps reboot has to be sitting out there for someone to pick up. That’s right Amazon, Hulu, Apple TV+. You don’t want Netflix gateway horror drugging the kids away from your streaming services do you? Sounds like a nightmare scenario to me.