My lack of money is making my choices for new film reviews very slim. Effectively I am limited to Netflix original films for the next few weeks. I will probably start to review films released this year rather than brand new films which should open up the limits of what I can do, but for this week I stuck to the brand-new film rule. If I am being completely honest, if I wasn’t doing these reviews there would be no situation, I could imagine, that I would sit down to watch Nightbooks (2021). It is a kid’s film after all, so I am not exactly the demographic. But just because it is a film for kids doesn’t mean it is bad and who knows, maybe I would be surprised. The film follows a young boy called Alex (Winslow Fegley), who is capture by a witch who demands he tell a different scary story every night or she will kill him. Along with another trapped child, Yazmin (Lidya Jewett), he hatches a plan to escape the witch and return home.
I won’t keep you waiting with bated breath to hear my opinion on this film; I liked it. I like it a lot more than I was expecting to in fact. It is a really well done and effective horror film for kids. In fact, it is so effective that it can actually feel maybe a bit too much for kids at times. I will touch on the actual horror aspects of the film later in the review, but I will kick it off with how the film looks. Technically, it is a well-made film. It is directed well and has solid cinematography without being astounding. But the film does have great visuals from the set designs which are bloody good. They are vibrant and elaborate without feeling overbearing or like they are drowning out everything else within the scene. That doesn’t mean that they don’t pop with colour and are pretty on the eye, which fits with the tone of the film being for kids. Speaking of kids, I am not usually a big fan of child actors but both Winslow Fegley and Lidya Jewett are really good throughout and I managed to buy into them as real characters rather than actors playing parts. Krysten Ritter is also goo as the witch. She is clearly having a ton in the role, and while it is a little over the top and campy it fits the tone of the film well so never feels too much. And it is this tone that I find most interesting about the film.
This film is, at its heart, a horror film. Yes, it is fun and silly at times, but that is understandable as the target audience is kids and families so it can’t dive too much into the horror aspects of its narrative. But, as a horror fan, I appreciate how much they bloody try to delve into that. First of all, it is clear that the director is a fan of horror films in general as it has so many aspects of horror films within it, while also paying homage to horror films throughout. The most obvious influence on this film (at least in my eyes) is the Evil Dead series. Not only does the tone often match that of those films, but the film also pays homage by using the Evil Dead shot. If you don’t know what this is it is the shot where the camera flies through the woods. However, while I really appreciate all the horror aspects of the film, it sometimes feels like it goes too far. There is a scene right at the beginning of the film where Alex is first captured by the witch which would not feel out of place in an Insidious or Conjuring film. It is full of genuine jump scares and quite creepy moments which feel a little too extreme for kids while not being effective enough to scare adults. The film settles down into a more playful tone after this, but it does feel maybe too scary for kids initially. Or maybe I am becoming sensitive in my old age.
So yeah, I was very pleasantly surprised by Nightbooks. It isn’t a stellar film, but as a kid’s horror film it is really solidly done. It can feel like I may overstep the mark in terms of it scares sometimes which does make me a little unsure on what age range this film is actually targeted at, but there are also enough fun and silly moments in it that I could see it being popular with certain children.
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