Fish and Cherries Productions

The Babadook is one of the creepiest and most disturbing horror movies I’ve ever seen. Everything from the audio cutting out to the sporadic edits to the characters’ movements and actions to the concept alone are meant to keep you in a state of discomfort while the movie strings you along the path before you realize that you’ve been going down a very deep rabbit hole. What makes it even more terrifying is that, for quite a while, you’re never sure if there’s a real monster terrifying the mother and her child or if it’s all in the poor woman’s head, brought on by sleep deprivation and stress. There’s enough evidence on both sides to keep you guessing for a very long time before the movie ends.

This is a horror movie in the truest sense, right down to the heavy exaggerated shadows throughout the scenes. There’s no jagoff characters getting picked off one by one as if going through a checklist and little to no CGI. In fact, Mister Babadook seems to harken back to the old times when horror monsters represented facets of ourselves and our society that we’d rather not face directly. I’ve heard a few things about Mister Babadook representing grief in the face of loss and there’s certainly some credence to that. But I personally think it more represents the ugly feelings of resentment that can come from being a single parent or having a child with special needs (or even both at once). A lot of the woman’s actions could be seen as stemming from her inability to cope with such things and slowly unraveling as her frustration of never being able to have a normal life grows.

If I had one complaint, though it’s minor, I would have to say that the circumstances that begin pushing the mother over the edge could sometimes be a bit too unpleasant to be reasonable. I can understand having a horrible boss at a dead end job and even the police being unhelpful when presented with a potential stalker case isn’t the furthest stretch. But the mother’s sister saying that she can’t stand her son seemed way too far for me. I mean, that’s her blood, for crying out loud. Oh well. Even with that one minor complaint, this is still a fabulous movie and probably the best horror film to come out in recent years. I feel bad for having missed out on this last year or it would have made my Top 13 Films list. I don’t know where I’d put it, but suffice to say, it belongs in the horror hall of fame. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sleep with the lights on.

And a shotgun nearby.