The Babadook | Film Review

If it’s in a word or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of The Babadook.

Horror is a genre that has succeeded in film for generations due to one simple reason: people love to be scared. Some of these films opt for blatant and direct ways to frighten audiences, such as constant bloodshed or the visual representations of nightmares. Then there are films like The Babadook, which attack our level of comfort through our own incessant need to rationalize the events taking place. A random unstoppable killer, well that is ridiculous. It is safe. An unseen monster brought blindly into our home by our own doing through a children’s book? Now THAT is terrifying.

The Babadook centers around single mother, Amelia (Essie Davis), and her 6 year-old son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman). Ever since her husband’s untimely death, Amelia has had her hands full raising precocious little Samuel and managing his varying fits of oddness. This character tic is only amplified when Samuel begins reading The Babadook, a children’s pop-up book.

Believing his book has brought a horrific monster into his home, his own personal boogeyman, Samuel becomes increasingly erratic and unstable. Amelia, overwhelmed herself with loneliness and guilt stemming from her husband’s passing, initially believes Samuel has suffered some sort of psychological break. After further evidence to the contrary arises, Amelia is forced to confront the very possibility that The Babadook is, in fact, real.

Movies like The Babadook are a rare find. For a story so seemingly simple, this is a film with inescapable layers. Loss, regret, guilt, penance. These are just a few of the numerous emotions at play throughout the film, and they each play their part in how your perception of this story plays out.

I say perception because, as much of the film is limited to these two specific characters, our understanding of the story is limited to two specific options. The first is that you take the story with a very literal interpretation: The Babadook is real, therefore Amelia and Noah must find a way to thwart our evil villain. The second notion is that you view this story as a thematic allegory to loss, therefore The Babadook is nothing more than the psychological breakdown of this mother and son, and the true villain is locked in the deepest recesses of their character’s minds.

Writer and director Jennifer Kent does such a strong job presenting the story, that both of these representations are distinctly possible. Through two viewings, I can tell you that I saw the film from both perspectives multiple times. When I earlier stated the film is a rare find, this is a prime example as to why. The Babadook is that rare horror film that not only brings you closer and closer to the edge of your seat, it also challenges you to think.

None of this would matter if it were not for two factors: The performances and the direction.

Essie Davis never feels like she is ‘acting’, instead it feels as though we are watching through a window into this tortured person’s life. From the opening scenes, we are given a glimpse of a woman lonely and exhausted with the string of bad luck she seems to consistently encounter. As the film wears on and her character intensifies, her increasingly fragile mental state is on full display. Are these things happening? Is the boogeyman real? Or is Amelia losing the fight for control of her psychologically scarred mind? Davis gives one of those performances that would garner talk of Oscar nominations, were it not for being part of the reviled ‘horror’ genre. Simply riveting.

Meanwhile, Noah Wiseman gives one of the more nuanced performances from a child actor I have witnessed in the years since Haley Joel Osment set the bar in Sixth Sense. Wiseman’s Samuel goes through numerous mental ups and downs, yet throughout the film he maintains that childish innocence that make him feel like a child you know. Placing an actor as young as Wiseman at the center of this madness, and then having half of the film hinging on his performance was a huge risk by Kent and company. With Wiseman in place, the gamble paid off.

Lastly is the direction by Jennifer Kent herself. Kent insightfully avoids most of the clichés and tropes that every generic filmmaker working today would embrace in a film like this. She avoids gore, choosing instead to focus on suggestion and atmosphere. Like a good novel or the Babadook book itself, much of how far this monster will go is never spelled out and is instead left up to the audience’s already wound-up imagination.

There is also very little ‘horror music’. No blatant audio cues, BOO scares, or cats jumping out of cupboards timed to screaming windpipes. Instead Kent employs careful audio editing that accentuates the film itself. I cannot recall a recent horror film that so effectively utilized sound editing to jolt the hairs on the back of your neck to attention. Sound truly becomes another character in the film, as every little creak and whisper feels like another clue to the mystery behind The Babadook.

The Babadook is an anagram for ‘a bad book’, and it surely is one horrible book. How you view the events of the film, and the actuality of the book itself, may vary on your own personal taste as there are a multitude of ways to interpret this puzzle of a script. The one-two punch of Davis and Wiseman, combined with smart direction by up-and-comer Jennifer Kent, make this one fairy tale you need to see for yourself.

* Be sure to listen to our exclusive interview with The Babadook director Jennifer Kent here!

Aaron Peterson
The Hollywood Outsider