Nancy Drew And The Hidden Staircase (2019)

A young teenager Nancy Drew (Sophia Lillis) finds life boring in a small town after living in Chicago. Excitement comes when an elderly woman (Linda Lavin) claims her house is haunted by long dead ghosts. Nancy decides to spend the night in the haunted house but what she finds may be far deadlier than ghosts. Based on the book by Carolyn Keene (aka Mildred Wirt Benson) and directed by Katt Shea (POISON IVY). I'm a huge mystery fan and Agatha Christie and the Nancy Drew books were part of my adolescence. In the late 1930s, there were several Nancy Drew mysteries filmed with Bonita Granville as Nancy including NANCY DREW AND THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE. This new version (Ellen DeGeneres is an executive producer) brings Nancy Drew into the 21st century. She travels on a skateboard, fights cyber bullying and is a role model for female empowerment. But in updating Nancy, the film has lost the charm and innocence of the Nancy Drew books and Bonita Granville's Nancy Drew movies of the 1930s. The film ends suggesting more adventures to come but I doubt the film will make enough profits to translate into a franchise. With Sam Trammell, very good as Nancy's father and Laura Slade Wiggins, Mackenzie Graham, Zoe Renee, Andrea Anders and Andrew Matthew Welch, who looks like a high school kid but plays a deputy sheriff!