The Babadook (Jennifer Kent 2014)

"Ba-ba-ba... dook! Dook! DOOOOOKH!"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2321549/

The concept of The Babadook is fairly classic, a creepy stalker/ monster film in which a mother fights to protect her son. The majority of traditional horror tropes follow however The Babadook manages to poke its hat above other recent horror flicks. 

The film centers around the psychological struggle of sleep deprived widow Amelia and her eccentric and slightly annoying to watch (for good reason) son Samuel. Still grieving her husbands death after six years, (on the day her son was born) when Samuel finds a pop up book with one of the creepiest and most un unassumingly original monsters in modern cinema, he begins to believe he will be captured by the Babadook.

So what sets the Babadook apart from other horror films of the type ie. Mama (Andrés Muschietti 2013), Insidious (James Wan 2010). Well first off, without delving too far into spoilers, the psychological questions it raises throughout the film are excellent, you actively question if the Babadook is real or if Amelia is actually breaking. That in itself is horrifying, you don't have to believe in a monster to fear for Samuel when the lights go out and you hear "Baba ba dook dook dook.". Secondly is just how creepy and believable the babadook is, he is always changing, never really seen or known, and the question of sanity really throws into questions what the Babadook actually looks like. 

Stylistically the films strays away from any kind of extreme gore or jump scares and relies solely on creating tension which is achieved brilliantly through the chilling score. Now I'm gonna get a little horror nerdy and a little spoilery and talk about theory and genre and stuff so if you havn't seen the film skip this paragraph. So I really like that Amelia isn't your typical female horror victim, she is struggling but she is independent, she is not the final female we are used to from slasher flicks. Not only that but she doesn't survive because she is a virgin, she clearly has a child, and if you wanted to get technical and say that she has not been sexual since her sons birth, a masturbation scene should put that to rest. The idea of the power of the Babadook being the personification of bottled up grief and anxiety over Amelia's husband is a great idea and the supernatural horror represents the power over the families lives the accident still holds. The domestication of the Babadook, in the basement where the husbands memory lived, shows the acceptance of grief and the moving on of not just Amelia but of Samuel too. Anyway I end my spoiler section by saying I think The Babadook is really interesting and may do a little genre study on it sometime.

The spoilers are over guys, you can read again.

The Babadook is simply put one of the tensest brave and thematically interesting horror films to come out of the last few years. Not only is it a suspenseful psychological horror, it is a beautiful drama about a single mother.
8.5/10