 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to 31 Days of Halloween. Today we are talking about a younger kids movie that popped up on Netflix that we decided to watch with Chris. Chris is nine. That's important when we get into this, but the show is called Night Books. It has a very strong Goosebumps feel, but it's far better shot than like the Goosebumps TV show back in the day, of course. I think it's even a better production than the Goosebumps movies with Jack Black as R.L. Stein. I like both of those. In fact, I like those better, but I think this one was even more well produced. It's better produced than the Goosebumps movies. Right off the bat, for you, T.L.D.W., too long didn't watch, folks. I liked it all right. It's three stars for me, probably more like 2.5, and we're going to get into more why I'm going to try to explain to you why I didn't care as much for it as maybe I should, and I'm going to tell you my son's thoughts as well. So right off the bat, the story follows a little boy whose name just completely blanks for me. I can't remember the kid's name. I know that there's a little girl in it, eventually also her name is Yasmin. And the story is about the little boy. He writes these things called Night Books and their horror stories, kid's horror stories, very interesting concepts, but they're very, very basic concepts. Now, it starts off with him destroying all of his horror memorabilia, all of his collectibles, and he wants to burn or get rid of all of his books. And we're wondering why. It seems obvious at first why he's doing this. It seems like his parents think he's weird. And that kind of goes on throughout that. So he's not really running away as much as he's going to try and get rid of all of his cherished items because his parents think he's weird. At least that's what you think at the beginning. Well, he takes off, he gets in the elevator, elevator stops, it restarts and the door is open, and he ends up inside this apartment that is owned by a witch. The witch is played by not Kristen Bell. What's her name? I can't remember. Not Kristen Stewart. Oh, man. She wrote a book too. Anyways, I think the name of the book was Bonfire. I can't remember the actress's name. I apologize. Doing her damn best Rose McGowan impression, though. Very, very Rose McGowan. In fact, the piece seemed to have been written for Rose McGowan. It's just a certain vibe that the character had. So this witch says, you know, if you read me a new horror story every night, then I will not kill you. And that's the setup. The apartment is kind of sentient. It reacts to the way kids, the two kids, because one is already there. Yasmin is already there when the boy arrives. She's been there for quite some time. And I couldn't really tell if they were supposed to be the same age. She seems much older than he does. But that could have just been because she's taller. Girls are taller at that age anyway. So it's not a good metric to judge by. Anyways, I think the coolest part of this whole thing was there is a section where they go into a kind of neon garden where all the plants are in black light and they're all neon. It's a very, very cool, very cool section. And the little creatures that they encounter when they're in there are very cool. Now, here, I'm going to start talking about the problems before I get into spoiler territory. I won't be getting into spoiler territory, actually. But I don't want to go any farther into the story to let you know what's going on. Because there is a pretty cool twist at the end. That's why I'm more at a 2.5, 3 stars than I probably should be. Throughout the entire movie, my son, my 9 year old son, who was pretty much the age bracket for this movie, was bored out of his mind. He kept getting up and walking around and, you know, just open up the refrigerator even though we had just eaten, you know, just being a busy body. And I know he's bored when he does that. So a complete miss on this movie's part for hitting that age bracket. Because he's a huge fan of kids horror content like Nightmare Before Christmas, The Halloween Tree. He loves all that stuff. But this movie just did not keep his attention whatsoever. Even me, at two times, usually I can sit through an entire movie without having to go out and smoke. But even me, I went out and smoked twice because I was so bored. And I don't really know why if it was the over the top acting from The Witch. I don't know if it was just a story. I was kind of like The Witch. I wanted to hear the boy's story. And the little segments that he had written weren't very interesting or very original. It just bored me. That's the thing I can say at this point is that the movie for all of its spectacular effects and cool concepts, it is far too boring, especially for kids. And for me as an adult, I didn't gel too well with it either. Now is that to say that everybody's kids are going to feel that way? Probably not. The horror content is rather extreme in two sections. The one section. And that's probably why I was more involved in these two sections. And they are my favorite parts of the movie. The little creatures that they find in the Neon Garden. And the ending. The ending was very, very dark. And I would say it's... I don't know. I don't really police what my kids watch or listen to or any of that stuff. Or read for that matter. But I think that most people will find the ending of this one a bit too much for their kids. Unless you're like me. And Chris was only involved in the movie and watching the movie during the sections that I bring up. Now the twist at the end is kind of a lifesaver for this movie. I would say that if it hadn't been for the end, I had a lot of fun at the end. Once they get out of the apartment and they get out into the woods, the movie does pick up and the movie does get interesting. But that's like the very last 20 minutes of an hour and a half, hour, 40 minute movie. All the stuff leading up to that stuff was really trite, really repetitive. And I just didn't... I didn't care too much. Even the library. I am a huge fan of libraries. The library in this apartment just seemed like a rehash of so many other things. And they didn't really use the concept too much. I would have much rather... I don't know. I don't want to say I would much rather have heard the stories that were in the library than I would have heard the stories that the boy tells. But the writer just seemed to not put much effort into the stories that the boy tells. Now some of the segments are pretty cool. There's one with this gigantic monster and sorcerer. I like the production design of it. But once again, the story was kind of boring. But that's all I really have to say about Night Books. I don't want to just keep on crapping on it. You've heard everything I've said. I'm just going to start repeating myself at this point in time. But if you watched it, it's on Netflix. If you have, let me know whether or not you loved it. You hated it. You felt mad about it. But if you did, let's talk about why. Give me some details about why you loved it. Especially if you loved it. I want to hear from you. Tell me why so that we can have discussion. But until next time, I have been E. You have been U. This has been another episode of 31 Days of Halloween. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye!