(For Day 12 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a poem that addresses itself, so I drew a comparison between my own writing deadlines and the more life-threatening deadlines of this film’s protagonist, perhaps like a spell that might help him.)

Lines of mine, lines of mine,
Tell me why you take your time.
You know the deadline’s coming fast,
And they’re expecting something good.

Stubborn words, on my nerves,
Tell me what this poem deserves.
Can’t you feel the restless readers
Breathing down my livelihood?

I beseech the powers of speech;
Bring the verse within my reach.
Page and ink, don’t you think
I’d write less tritely if I could?

Rhymes of fire, climb, inspire,
Share the lyrics I require.
Don’t you care the curse will come
If we don’t feed them like we should?
______________________

MPA rating:  PG (due to some rather intense scares for a kids movie)

While I acknowledge the likes of Coraline, Gremlins, and Goosebumps, it does feel like kid-friendly horror movies are few and far between, so I appreciate when a new one comes along. Based on a J. A. White book, Nightbooks makes writer’s block more of a nightmare than it already is. After fleeing his home one night, young horror enthusiast Alex Mosher (Winslow Fegley) is lured inside a magical apartment building controlled by the heartless witch Natacha (Krysten Ritter), who insists he read her a new scary story every night. Trapped within this enchanted prison, Alex and his fellow hostage Yasmin (Lidya Jewett) must find a way to outsmart their captor and escape.

Nightbooks has a great Scheherazade-style setup, with a would-be horror writer being forced to come up with new stories or face dire consequences. Krysten Ritter as the witch is a perfect adversary for this kind of movie. She’s capricious and hammy with her persona but can quickly become sadistic and threatening if displeased, and her magical unpredictability adds a lot to the sense of dread even when she’s not on screen. Fegley and Jewett are further proof that child actors are no longer the stuff of automatic mockery, and Fegley’s Alex will especially appeal to kids who struggle to embrace their niche interests.

With its fairy tale qualities hearkening back to witch stories like Hansel and Gretel, Nightbooks has a good chance at becoming a Halloween staple for those who seek it out on Netflix. The individual creepy tales Alex reads to Natacha are the stuff of cheesy campfire frights, but the scares can actually get rather intense at times, like during a side quest with skull-faced, blade-wielding insects that attack Natacha’s garden. And it doesn’t hurt that the film and Alex have a fondness for The Lost Boys, even ending with a fantastic cover of “Cry Little Sister” by CHVRCHES. For aspiring young writers especially, Nightbooks is an ideal spooky watch.

Best line: (Yasmin) “Weird? Who called you that? Well, they’re right. You are weird. I mean, look at you. The thing that makes you weird makes them ordinary, and nobody likes to be ordinary because ordinary sucks. So ordinary people are going to try and take that away from you by calling you names like… try-hard or…”  (Alex) “Or creepshow.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

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