Directed by Jennifer Kent
Starring Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall and Hayley McElhinney
When I first hit the various subscribe buttons on my TV to sign up for Netflix, this movie was one that immediately caught my eye. A few people in my daily life and a whole lot of people online had excellent things to say about The Babadook, a 2014 piece of creepy that damn near every critic jizzed themselves over upon its film festival blitzkrieg tour. And...I can pretty much report that they're correct, in as much as "correct" means "I agree." This IS a really good horror flick. It doesn't rely on jump scares, and it admittedly had me a little unsettled when I shut the TV off and tried to go to sleep. And while I didn't enjoy it in the way that I necessarily want to watch it again (it's just too angsty), this is definitely a movie that every horror fan should check out.
For the vast, VAST majority of the running time, this is essentially a two-person story. Essie Davis stars as Amelia, a relatively young widow who lives in a big house with her son Samuel, played by Noah Wiseman. This kid puts in one of the better child performances I've seen a horror movie. Generally, I'm not a fan of the "creepy kid" trope, and it's got its hiccups here, but the script goes above and beyond in regards to the Samuel character. He's a very creative kid, a wannabe magician who likes to carry weapons around with him in a strange game of "kill the monster" that he is very committed to. No doubt foreshadowing for later.
Amelia is a very tired individual. Her husband died driving her to the hospital during labor, and Samuel's strange behavior has definitely taken its toll on her. She's a former writer who now makes a living calling bingo numbers and cleaning up after the elderly at a retirement home, the humdrum existence of her daily life compacted by her life with Samuel. The kid is a constant tax on her soul, his eccentricities carrying over to school as he likes to tell stories about smashing monster's heads in while using the various gadgets that he creates on his classmates. One of the early scenes sees school administrators essentially expelling Sam from their school, and while everything is bubbling under the surface at this point, the sheer exasperation that Amelia feels for her son is definitely there. Davis does an admirable job portraying all of this to the audience; it IS subtle at first without projecting it in advance, and she comes across as JUST relatable enough that the movie's eventual "shit hits the fan" section really packs a wallop.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Amelia reads Samuel a story every night before bed, and one night a mysterious book appears on his shelf. Titled "Mister Babadook," it seems innocuous enough at first but quickly turns sinister. Sinister enough that Samuel is terrified by it and the dark figure that the book depicts hovering over beds and making vague threats. Begin slow burn. At this point, the movie takes a small dip in momentum, as we get a few predictable twists involving the book turning up again after Amelia destroys it (this time with some new pages added depicting Amelia killing the cute family dog and then slicing her own son's throat. Of course, she thinks it is a stalker, running off to the police to file a report - only to see the book's "Babadook" cloak hanging on a coat rack.
This isn't a movie that is going to floor you with endless twists and turns. It's a straightforward three-act masterwork, where we are (1) introduced to the characters, (2) given complications, and (3) thrown into the fire with them. And folks...you have no idea how much of a boner that gives me in this day and age of $200 million blockbusters that slather on the false climaxes until I just want all the CGI crap on the screen to die. Yes, there are one or two sections of this movie that drag, but they are very brief, and it's done for a purpose. That purpose being the final showdown between Amelia, Samuel and the mysterious Babadook itself, the symbolism of which can be interpreted in any number of ways. Like, we're talking Freudian here. The final 20 minutes of The Babadook is some of the most creepy, disturbing and downright tension-filled stuff I've seen from a horror movie in a long time, and it's accomplished largely because we've invested so much time in these characters and their strangely relatable life situation.
Now, there ARE other characters in this movie apart from Amelia and Samuel, but they're largely window dressing - a dude who works with Amelia and the kindly elderly next door neighbor who watches Samuel when Amelia is at work. This movie is all about a slow build to a riveting climax, and when it comes to that, few movies that I've seen have done it better. And make no mistake, people...this is a horror movie, with a few sequences that will leave you a little unnerved when the movie is over and you're in an empty house. Well, that's assuming you're like me, and have no wife and nothing else to do on a Saturday night, but I digress.
*** 1/2 out of ****. Check this one out, kids, the hype is deserved.
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