The Babadook

This is a thrilling and scary Aussie horror. It's the flipside to something like Wolf Creek which relies on gore and torture. The Babadook is psychological horror mixed with elements of paranormal horror. It's intense and creepy as hell. There isn't enough of the Babadook creepiness for it to be an utterly fantastic horror film, but when the instances comes, they are great and so scary. I felt that the budget impacted the film. If it had more money, they would surely have included more Babadook scenes and scared us a lot more. Regardless, it's a great film and Essie Davis gives a superbly menacing performance. What makes this film so good is that it doesn't rely on jump scares or the titular presence. It has a good back story (supported by the brilliant performance of Davis), and is basically a degeneration of Amelia and her mental well being, and how that is affecting her life, her son's life, and her family/friends.

The Babadook could so easily be the next horror icon, just like Ghostface, Michael Myers, and the red-faced demon from Insidious have, and just like Hollow Face from Intruders could have done. It's that scary. Just hearing that voice makes me shit myself.

B+

The feature-length directorial debut of Jennifer Kent, expanding her short film Monster, The Babadook is an allegorical fright film, positioning itself at the strange place where the bump-in-the-night creature feature intersects with the domestic drama. The title refers to the monster in a bedtime story mysteriously found on the shelf in the bedroom of Samuel (Noah Wiseman), the disobedient and troubled son of widow Amelia (Essie Davis). She is at the end of her tether: bored by her job as a rest-home nurse, often unable to control her temperamental son, and still grieving the death of her husband, who crashed his car the day Samuel was born. The ambiguous, evil entity on the page begins to twist and turn its way into her fracturing mind, and it is clear neither mother nor son may survive as reality and nightmare fuse.

I never found this film particularly frightening in a conventional sense, but it does have a overarching atmosphere of unease, and its ideas are rich and rewarding. Kent's screenplay establishes a painful and poignant human scenario—a single mother who cannot cope with the pressures of her life, including the unctuous misbehavior of her son, and may go over the edge (into despair, into violence)—and slowly pushes it into the realm of the extraordinary. In this way, it joins a proud tradition of films eliciting screams from the anxieties and responsibilities of parenting, including Rosemary's Baby, The Shining, and The Others. Also of note here is a magnificent, career-elevating lead performance by journeyman Australian actress Essie Davis. As Amelia, she swings wildly from subdued, dejected lows to extreme menace without sacrificing an internal continuity.

B+

Nice review, dude.

Thanks.

I don't get the hype for this one. Maybe, its because I'm burnt out on these type of horror movies, but I found nothing about this the least bit scary.

The kid annoyed the hell out of me, but the actress who played the mom was pretty good.

This is a really intelligent psychological horror film. Amazing lead performance. Loved it!

9/10 (A-)

subtextual

I'd also probably go crazy if I had to live with that kid. Yet the dog is the only who suffers? Doesn't seem fair.

The movie isn't terrible, but it tries way too hard to be a smart horror movie and ends up getting in its own way. The first half is just miserable.

On second viewing I bumped this up to an "A." Best horror film of 2014.