Nightbooks

Nightbooks follows Alex, a boy with a passion for frightening tales, who finds himself held captive by a witch named Natacha inside her enchanted apartment in New York City. Another child, Yasmin, is imprisoned there too, and she explains the arrangement that keeps them alive: Alex must tell the witch a new scary story every night. While he keeps her entertained, the two children work together to figure out how to escape her magical home.

David Yarovesky directed the film, which was written by Tobias Iaconis and Mikki Daughtry and produced by Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert and Mason Novick among others. It is adapted from J.A. White's children's book and sits between Yarovesky's earlier feature Brightburn and his later Locked. Winslow Fegley plays Alex, Lidya Jewett plays Yasmin and Krysten Ritter plays Natacha. The film runs 101 minutes.

A film critics' rating of 7 out of 10 from 31 reviews places it above its audience scores: on IMDb it holds 5.8 out of 10 from around 11,000 votes, and on TMDB it has 6.1 out of 10 from roughly 446 votes. A moderate gap between the two audience measures is typical of a title with a small voting base on one platform. Its blend of family fantasy and horror elements was made for younger viewers.