The First Trailer For Nightbooks Will Keep You Up Tonight
Living inside of a spacious New York City apartment that you don't have to pay for sounds like a dream come true, but in the case of the upcoming Netflix horror film "Nightbooks," it is just the beginning of an inescapable nightmare.
The story, based on the J.A. White story of the same name, follows a young boy named Alex (Winslow Fegley) who unexpectedly finds himself trapped inside of the TARDIS-like (it can move across space) NYC apartment of a sinister with named Natacha (Krysten Ritter). Natacha will allow Alex to live, trapped inside her not-so-humble abode, so long as he regales her with a new scary story every night.
If this strikes you as familiar, that's because it is. The "keep telling stories or you'll be killed" genre is often referred to as Scheherazade, so named after narrator of the classic Middle Eastern folk tales dubbed "One Thousand and One Nights."
In most versions of this type of tale the goal is simple — the protagonist must keep telling stories until they can trick their captor and escape. And based on the first trailer for "Nightbooks," that looks to be quite a challenging escape indeed.
Scary stories to tell in a witch's NYC apartment
The trailer for "Nightbooks" opens simply enough — Alex awakens, but he does so in a place he does not recognize. He's quickly confronted by Natacha, with whom he makes the bargain: tell a new scary story every night. Should Alex fail to meet their arrangement, Alex will either die or face a fate that is even worse than death. It's a Netflix film which we can see already takes a page from the likes of "Fear Street" and "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark."
What immediately makes "Nightbooks" distinct is that Alex is not alone in his quest for survival. Alex is joined by a young girl named Yasmin (Lidya Jewett) who has already been trapped by Natacha for some time and effectively acts as Alex's guide in understanding his strange surroundings. We don't know how long Yasmin has been trapped or why, but she's been there long enough to know her way around — and she's also been there long enough to feel hopeless about any chances of escape.
In addition to being able to travel all over the world, Natacha's apartment is infinitely large enough to hold anything: countless books, disappearing cats, and, a garden full of deadly, skull-faced insects, and a unicorn — and that's just some of what we see in the trailer.
"Nightbooks" is directed by "Brightburn" director David Yarovesky and is produced by "Evil Dead" legend Sam Raimi. "Nightbooks" begins streaming Netflix on September 15.