The Babadook (2014)

Review

"You can't get rid of the Babadook" - Samuel

Amelia is a single Mom trying to cope with her at times hyper-active son Samuel. She is plagued by sorrow for the death of her husband, which strangely happened in almost Owen Meany style as he was driving her to the hospital to have Samuel seven years previously. Amelia can't sleep, Samuel is plagued by nightmares about monsters in his bedroom, and their house is closing in on the increasingly dysfunctional pair.

While Samuel is certainly going off the rails, building increasingly deadly devices to kill the monster he believes is after his mom, Amelia is on a long descent into darkness as she finds life tedious, sleep hard to come by, and Samuel increasingly difficult to deal with. Adding a little spice to the broth is a book Samuel finds on his shelf, Mister Babadook, which describes a sinister dark creature that preys on little boys. As things escalate Amelia starts to believe the Babadook is indeed in their house for nefarious purposes. Can Amelia confront the Babadook and learn its weakness or will tragedy again visit their doorstep?

Every now and again you are presented with a movie that makes all the crud you normally sit through seem worth the effort, that ring of crystal amongst the glass to paraphrase one Stephen King. The Babadook is just such a movie, I was stunned, slammed back in my lounge seat, and glued to the screen as Director Jennifer Kent deliver the best Aussie horror movie thus far this century! Kent in her debut feature has given us a classic that will be talked about in the same breath as Picnic At Hanging Rock, The Cars That Ate Paris, Black Water, and Wolf Creek. If Kent hasn't redefined the Australian horror movie she has certainly gone a long way to showing it can be more powerful than the more vaunted United States product. Part haunted house, part monster, and all psychological, The Babadook is the sort of horror flick that will make sometime viewers instant horror fans.

Firstly the movie can be interpreted on multiple levels, depending what you want from it, Kent isn't going didactic and arguing that there is only one meaning. So if you want your supernatural yayas then you are in the right place, if you want a sort of demonic possession style outing then sit right down, or if like me you took a more metaphysical view of things then equally you are catered for. There's a real The Shinning thing going down in the house, just what it actually means is up to the individual to make his or her call about. We certainly had a vigorous discussion in the Sminds bunker with people using different scenes to back up their viewpoint. Jennifer Kent isn't saying what the correct viewpoint is, that's called respecting your audience, it's all up to you Baby Blue but note the constant Babadook reference going on in the background, one seriously spooky crib y'all!

The second thing that struck me with The Babadook was just how atmospheric and tense it all is, Kent delivers the type of movie Tim Burton strives for. There's a sort of dark fairy tale feeling to the flick that stays with you throughout the running time. Attention to detail doesn't begin to describe it, if any abode looked like a likely haunt for a nightmare monster then Amelia's house certainly fitted the bill. We're talking two stories of depressing grunge with surprisingly quite a spacious basement, not something you normally find in urban Australia. Talk about your external representation of a character's internal mayhem, Jennifer Kent has a lot of fun rocking out in her sets and I was riding shotgun on that, simply superb!

So I guess everyone is hanging for a description of the actual monster, Kent doesn't let us down but some folk might be a tad disappointed if I had to be brutally honest. We get glimpses of the creature; the Director isn't allowing the zipper to show, stop motion animation, and an overall feeling of morbid curiosity. I was loving what I was seeing, Kent once again ensuring the dark fairy tale nature of her movie was maintained. The Director was definitely across the concept of less is more and uses her monster in sinister fashion. I got a Jaws vibe from the whole thing, what you don't see is definitely a lot more scary than what you do see. In keeping with the ambiguous tone of things, our top hated thing in the closet is at its most scary when the audience are unsure of what they are viewing. A lot of mainstream Boredwood flicks could benefit from Kent's approach in all honesty, generally once you see the creature it's a huge letdown.

There are some nice touches to the movie that had me nodding my head in approval. "Mister Babadook", the book Samuel discovers on his bookshelf was a gruesome fun idea. They should publish that bad boy, a lot of folk would snap up a copy. There's no explanation as to where the book came from, once again I have some firm ideas but others might have differing interpretation, and Amelie finds she can't get rid of it. There are also a number of incidental minor characters that Amelia or Samuel push away with their increasingly bizarre behaviour. The old lady next door, Amelia's workmate who has a thing for her, and Amelia's sister who fails to recognise the mental breakdown going down. Director Kent throws in minor characters to keep things rocking but never allows her movie to drift or uses them to pad out the running time. The minor characters add to the movie without distracting from where things are going.

Okay gorehounds are going to be disappointed, very little in the way of death and mayhem beyond the family pooch getting it - off screen at that. Kent rocks right up to some pretty dangerous ground in regard this element, but throws in enough premonitions for her lead character to recognise where things are apt to end up if the situation continues to spiral out of control. There is one sequel where Amelia is stalking Samuel that had me sitting on the edge of my seat, but we're not talking Friday the 13th here. Equally T&A isn't happening beyond one scene where Amelia reaches for her dildo; Samuel interrupts festivities which no doubt had every parent in the audience nodding their head in recognition. Kent is driving on a one lane freeway here and is never allowing her audience to be distracted from the central premise.

In what amounts to a two shot there are strong performances from both our focal characters. Essie Davis (Amelia) delivers a forceful turn that had me simply stunned. I'm calling this Davis' best performance thus far and she should be dealing with a deluge of offers from Hollywood even as we speak. Noah Wiseman (Samuel) nails it as the kid with the advance case of ADD who is doing everything in his limited experience to deal with his mother who has more than a few Roos bounding around the top paddock. Wiseman was a revelation and simply rocks the role of irritating kidlet with a very strange agenda. Director Kent gets outstanding performances from her two leads and nails things tight.

So clearly I had a great time with The Babadook and it comes highly recommended. In an age where horror has descended to increasing poor found footage, simply gore, or complete rehashes it's a brief of fresh air to run across a movie that tries something new and seeks to unnerve the audience. Jennifer Kent has released the best horror flick of the year and it deserves a wide audience, forget all the crap coming out of Boredwood currently The Babadook is the real thing, word to your slight deranged mother!