Halloween is only a few weeks away, and Halloween requires scary movies. Netflix is cooperating with that requirement by giving us Nightbooks.
Nightbooks premiered on Netflix September 15. Take a peek at this contemporary horror story.
Nightbooks, based on the YA book of the same name by J. A. White, tells the story of Alex, a young boy who enjoys making up scary stories. A witch captures him and offers him a deal reminiscent of Scheherazade and the sultan: if he will compose a new scary story for her every night, she will postpone killing him — not spare him nor free him, just postpone his inevitable execution. He befriends Yazmin, whom the witch captured previously and kept as a servant. Together, Alex and Yasmin plot their escape.
Who’s Who?
Winslow Fegley (Byron in the horror film Come Play) plays young Alex. Lidya Jewitt (who played young Katherine Coleman in Hidden Figures and young Nakia in Black Panther) plays the pragmatic Yazmin. Saturn-nominee Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones in Jessica Jones and The Defenders) plays this wickedest of witches.
Nightbooks is directed by David Yarovesky, director/co-writer of the science fiction/horror film The Hive. Although based on the book by J. A. White, Nightbooks is written by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis, the team who co-wrote the horror film The Curse of La Llorena and the bittersweet, poignant Five Feet Apart. Producer Sam Raimi, who previously directed Spider-Man and produced Evil Dead appears to have done a workmanlike job with this scary movie about scary stories.
Unfortunately, a horror movie is not guaranteed to have a happy ending. Will Alex and Yazmin eventually escape? Will the witch kill and eat them? Or will Alex grow up to be Stephen King?
Nightbooks is streaming now on Netflix.
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Susan Macdonald is the author of the children’s book “R is for Renaissance Faire”, as well as 26 short stories, mostly fantasy in “Alternative Truths”, “Swords and Sorceress #30”, Swords &Sorceries Vols. 1, 2, & 5, “Cat Tails” “Under Western Stars”, and “Knee-High Drummond and the Durango Kid”. Her articles have appeared on SCIFI.radio’s web site, in The Inquisitr, and in The Millington Star. She enjoys Renaissance Faires (see book above), science fiction conventions, Highland Games, and Native American pow-wows.
