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Starring: Winslow Fegley, Lidya Jewett, Krysten Ritter
OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆
Story:
Netflix family fantasy horror directed by David Yarovesky. Nightbooks (2021) follows Alex (Winslow Fegley), a young boy obsessed with scary stories, who gets trapped by an evil witch (Krysten Ritter) in her magical apartment. To avoid certain death, the witch demands that he tell her a scary story every night. Upon meeting the another prisoner, Yazmin (Lidya Jewett), the two team up and use their wits to escape her apartment, a magical labyrinth filled with various dangers.
Our Favorite Quotes:
'The thing that makes you weird makes them ordinary. And no one likes to be ordinary. Ordinary sucks. So ordinary people are going to try and take that away from you.' - Yasmin (Nightbooks) Click To Tweet
Best Quotes
Alex: [finds himself in a strange apartment] Where am I? Hello? Hello? Anyone? I’m trapped!
Natacha: [to Alex] Boo. Let’s get this over with. I’m a busy witch. Are you useful in any way?
Natacha: [to Alex] Do you see them? The apartment lured them in. That’s what the apartment does. Those children, they were not useful to me. Do you understand? So let’s try this again. Is there anything special about you at all? Any reason I should let you live?
Natacha: Goodbye, Alex.
Alex: I do write scary stories.
Natacha: Did you say, “Scary stories?”
Alex: My Nightbooks. It’s where I wrote my stories.
Natacha: What are you doing with these so late at night?
Alex: I was going to burn them in the boiler room downstairs.
Natacha: Burn them? So they’re not any good. Goodbye, Alex.
Alex: No! They’re good. They’re very, really, really good.
Natacha: [to Alex] Nightbooks, huh? The title better not be the scariest thing about them. I’m going to need a story every night. The story better be good, and it better be scary. Or it’s the last thing you’ll ever do.
Alex: You’re a kid.
Yasmin: And you’re a genius.
Alex: I’m Alex. Who are you?
Yasmin: You’re going to be chatty. Great. I’m Yasmin.
Alex: Are you a prisoner too?
Yasmin: No, I’m on vacation.
Alex: Where is she, Natacha?
Yasmin: I don’t know where she goes, or what she does, but she can go anywhere she wants. Talk about the ultimate passport, this apartment is it.
Alex: Ultimate passport?
Yasmin: The apartment travels all over the world, luring kids in.
Alex: The apartment moves?
Yasmin: When it needs fresh meat.
[as Alex looks disturbed]
Yasmin: Not literally. Jeez. Thought you wrote scary stories.
Alex: Not anymore.
Yasmin: The apartment can do two things. It lures suckers like us in, and it has room to hold, well, anything.
Alex: She does like stories.
Yasmin: Yeah, I thought you said you weren’t into that kind of stuff anymore.
Alex: I’m not. It’s my friend.
Yasmin: Oh, it’s your friend?
Alex: He’d like all this stuff. But me? No. He’s like, he’s really lame.
Yasmin: Yeah, he sounds lame.
Yasmin: So she makes me read her a stupid scary story every night, but she says everything in here’s already been read.
Alex: Everything?
Yasmin: Good thing you’re a storyteller. She needs you, so get to work. You heard her. She wants a scary story tonight. Every day, write as many stories as you can.
Alex: I’m over the whole writing thing.
Yasmin: Then you better get over getting over it, and crank out some new tales. Because if you don’t…
Alex: She’ll kill me. I know.
Yasmin: You’ll be lucky if she kills you. This is your life now. Forget your family. Forget your friends. Focus on being useful to Natacha. You want to live? Write scary stories.
Alex: I’m not going to write anything, because I’m getting out of here!
Yasmin: You’re going to die!
Natacha: [to Alex] Every time. You all try and run. There’s no escape. You understand?
Alex: What is that?
Natacha: Do you know what happens to children who ask too many questions? Do you want to find out?
Alex: [reading from his story “The Playground”] “When Todd’s best friend Jenny died, his heart shattered into a thousand pieces.”
Natacha: Shattered heart? I like it already.
'Friends never let go. Because friends never forget.' - Alex (Nightbooks) Click To Tweet
Alex: “Everyone avoided the Foster Playground at night. They all knew the legend. In the hour before daylight, the dead kids would come out and play.”
Natacha: Nope. No, no, no. Sorry. Nope. Everyone knows that ghosts haunt places that are personal to them, not public places.
Alex: Are you sure?
Natacha: I’m sure.
Alex: “Their skin is deathly white. Some of their clothes date back decades. They push Todd on a swing, higher and higher…”
Natacha: Stupid! Everyone knows ghosts don’t have actual physical hands, so they could never push him on a swing. Amateur.
Alex: The playground is, it’s an interdimensional plane. A mix between the spirit world and the real world.
Natacha: Oh, so you’re a quantum physicist now?
Alex: “Seeing his old friend again makes Todd’s heart hurt. I miss you. I don’t want to let you go. But in death, Jenny discovered something that Todd is about to learn. Friends never let go, Todd. Because friends never forget. I’ll always be with you, here.”
Natacha: [to Alex] A happy ending? Are you out of your mind? No happy endings, you fool!
Natacha: Happy endings are a dangerous thing. Never forget that.
Alex: Did you at least like the story? I mean, until the ending?
Natacha: Writers, always so insecure. You’re still alive, aren’t you?
Natacha: I’m mystified by you, Storyteller. This beautiful darkness dances inside your brain. You should celebrate it. But you run from it. Why?
Alex: I just, I want to be like everyone else.
Alex: Yasmin, I’m sorry. I didn’t know about the “no happy endings” thing.
Yasmin: Todd shouldn’t have gone back for Jenny. He was stupid.
Alex: No, he wasn’t. He was her friend, and that’s what friends do.
Yasmin: Maybe in fairy tales. But in here? She’s right, you know. Happy endings don’t exist.
Alex: [talking to the statues] How did they get you? They got me with a piece of pie and Lost Boys.
Alex: Once upon a time, Alex stared up at the ceiling. Then the ceiling fell on him, and put him out of his misery. The end.
Trailer: