Nightbooks is a horror film based on the 2018 book by J. A. White and directed by David Yarovesky (Brightburn). It was released on September 15, 2021 on Netflix.
Alex Mosher is a young boy from Brooklyn with a hobby of writing scary stories. When he's kidnapped by Natacha, a Wicked Witch (Krysten Ritter), he's forced to tell stories to her to stay alive. He befriends the witch's housemaid, a fellow captive named Yazmin. It's up to them to find a way to escape.
Tropes:
- All There in the Script: The original witch is unnamed in the film proper but the end credits list her as Grizelda.
- And I Must Scream: The fate of children who are disobedient to Natacha — transformed into a still figurine. As Yasmin keeps emphasizing to Alex, he'd only wish Natacha would kill him if he invokes her wrath. At the end of the film, one starts to move.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: The cat, Lenore, starts the film as The Mole for Natacha, spying on the kids and reporting to her. After Alex saves him from Natacha's wrath and heals wounds he sustained courtesy of a Shredder, he grows much kinder to Alex and Yazmin, eventually betraying Natacha by mixing the sleeping potion into the mist she sprays on herself.
- Bittersweet Ending: Alex and Yazmin manage to escape and return to their parents, killing the original witch in the process. But the other kids Natacha kidnapped are still trapped in their doll forms, and Natacha survived.
- Body Horror: During her prolonged period asleep, the original witch began fusing with the candy in her gingerbread house.
- Botanical Abomination: The Shredders, which grow from eggs that developed when Yazmin used the wrong type of blood to water a magical plant.
- Burn Baby Burn: A despondent Alex attempts to do this to his scary stories at the beginning of the film, which is how he ends up in the elevator that delivers him to the apartment. Throughout the film, he resists Natacha's efforts to make him explain why he wanted to do this, before eventually explaining it was out of shame for being seen as "weird" by his classmates, including a former friend. He ultimately tosses them in the furnace after escaping the apartment in order to lure the original witch inside it. Although that was a mostly empty one, ironically the original notebooks end up destroyed by a shredder, and not by Alex's own hand.
- Cats Are Mean: Lenore acts as this at first, but ultimately warms up to Alex and Yazmin and even betrays Natacha.
- Correction Bait: In order to get the final ingredient of a sleeping potion to use against her, Alex and Yaz decide to trick Natacha into giving it up by writing a story that deliberately uses an incorrect ingredient, knowing she'll be compelled to correct it. They're right.
- Eldritch Location: The apartment, which can travel, has doors that disappear when Natacha wants them to, has a massive library stretching up to an incredible height, and initially has a fake window showing the New York City skyline that fools Alex. The back door that Alex and Yazmin "escape" through leads into a fake forest constructed within the apartment, leading to the original witch's Gingerbread House.
- Excrement Statement: Lenore taunts Alex by invisibly pooping on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich he just made.
- Eye Scream: A director trademark. The Shredder almost tears into Yazmin's eyes, but is stopped by Alex.
- Fantastic Flora: The Apartment has a "night garden", a room full of magical plants that glow and are grown under blacklight, because real sunlight is toxic to them. They're watered with things like animal blood and are ingredients in magical spells and potions.
- Friendless Background: Alex wasn't popular in school for his love of scary stories. He ended up stopping writing them because of that.
- Gingerbread House: The final part of the movie takes place in one. It turns out it really is the very same gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel.
- Godzilla Threshold: Unwilling to submit to Natacha's whims any longer, Alex deliberately ends his final story with a Happy Ending to wake the original witch so she can fight Natacha.
- Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: Natacha kidnaps kids and will then turn them into still figurines if they do not follow her instructions, meaning their parents will never see them again.
- Kill It with Fire: Much like Hansel and Gretel, Alex and Yaz kill the original witch by luring her into a furnace and trapping her inside, roasting her.
- Lesser of Two Evils: Natacha considers herself this compared to the original witch, who cooked and ate children.
- Let's You and Him Fight: After invoking the Godzilla Threshold above, Alex, Yazmin and Lenore escape while Natacha is forced to confront the original witch. They successfully escape the apartment, but unfortunately the original witch comes after them once she defeats Natacha.
- Mind-Control Eyes: The original gingerbread house is irresistibly alluring and gives rainbow swirled eyes as victims mindlessly consume its candy building material.
- Minimalist Cast: For most of the movie, there's only four characters. Natacha, Alex, Yazmin and the cat Lenore.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Natacha enjoys scary stories a lot. She reacts negatively to any inaccuracies that take her out of the narrative. It's revealed that that's because scary stories keep the original witch asleep
- Power Parasite: Natacha is constantly seen spraying herself with a mysterious blue mist, which Alex and Yazmin believe she's doing to keep herself young. They're sort of right; it turns out to be the original witch's magic, which Natacha is using to empower herself with magical abilities and, by extension, keep herself young. In the climax, Yaz sprays some on herself in order to gain the ability to open the magic front door and escape.
- The Reveal: Natacha isn't the original witch; she's a former victim ("unicorn girl") who escaped, realized she'd been abandoned by her family during her time in captivity, returned to the apartment, trapped the original witch in a deep sleep and began stealing her power.
- Schmuck Bait: How the apartment lures children in. Alex is lured in by a TV playing The Lost Boys and pumpkin pie; Yaz was lured in with some of her grandmother's cooking; and a previous victim later revealed to be Natacha herself was lured in with a unicorn. Subverted in that, with Alex, it's shown that victims are at least compelled to take the bait. The original Gingerbread house in the apartment has the same property.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The original witch is stuck in a coffin in the Gingerbread House. She awakens after Alex's last story.
- Sequel Hook: Natacha is revealed to have survived her encounter with the original witch, and one of her formerly-a-child figurines has started to move on its own.
- Slipping a Mickey: Natacha kidnaps her victims by laying out their favorite foods spiked with drugs.
- Start of Darkness: Natacha was "unicorn girl", lured into the apartment and forced to clean the oven after she roasted other kids inside to eat them. She pretended to be loyal, but managed to successfully drug the witch and escape. But after she realized her parents had long since left their home after she disappeared, she broke, returned to the apartment, trapped the witch and assumed her role as caretaker of the apartment.
- A True Story in My Universe: Hansel and Gretel is based on the original witch and her Gingerbread House.
- Undead Child: The first story Alex tells Natacha is about a playground filled with ghost children.
- Unicorn: A past victim of the apartment was lured inside with one. Alex and Yazmin later encounter one in the forest near the gingerbread house, which Natacha, who was the unicorn girl, created with the witch's power.
- Wicked Witch: Natacha, a witch with no qualms in enslaving children, who also kills people who she doesn't find useful. And the original witch, who lured her into the apartment in the first place.
- Would Hurt a Child: Natacha shows no hesitation in threatening the children in her apartment, and seemingly is about to kill them at one point, only stopped by the sleep potion. And then there's the original witch, who outright Eats Babies.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: The first story Alex tells Natacha is about a kid narrowly escaping entrapment as a ghost forever in a haunted playground, finally reconciling with his friend's death in the process. After Natacha admonishes him to never tell a happy ending, he amends that the boy is suddenly dragged back by ghostly hands as he turns to walk away.
