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Babadook

5/5/2015

60 Comments

 

3.19
B+

  • Much of the terror comes from a combination of atmospheric terror and superb acting - Phil
  • As psychological horror goes, this is an intense descent into madness - Jon
  • Blair's kids say that this is supposed to be the scariest movie ever or something. Whatever. Those kids ain't shit - Shane
Original Post by Philly

I like to think I don’t scare particularly easily.  “The Babadook” freaked me out.  It is completely unpredictable and director Jennifer Kent masterfully creates a world with an omnipresent sense of dread.  Kent draws on several influences from earlier horror movies and connects them to create a truly terrifying story held together by an excellent performance by Essie Davis as Amelia.

Too many horror movies are unpredictable for the sake of being unpredictable (Hi Scream series), but The Babadook was constantly forcing me to question everything and kept me on my toes throughout.  We go through two assumptions of what the conflict actually is before arriving at the true battle.  Act 1 sets up a standard “demon child” story a la The Omen.  As far as child actors go, Noah Wiseman as Samuel did a great job switching roles throughout the movie, but he had a couple noticeable points where he was lacking.  He didn’t seem “worried enough” throughout, if that makes sense.  By Act 2, we have solved the mystery of Samuel and now we’re in full-on psychological terror.  Amelia was our rock throughout the first portion of the movie, our grip on reality.  Now, she’s forcing us to question what is and isn’t real.  The atmosphere established by Kent is pivotal to this section working.  The creepy, dimly lit house and effective use of the score and sound really forces the audience into the mind of Amelia.  We’re just as terrified as her to pull those blankets down and see what’s creeping around the bedroom.  Finally, by Act 3, we have learned the Babadook is very real and we move into possession horror territory, with Kent drawing liberally from The Exorcist.  This act doesn’t work at all with a great performance out of Essie Davis, and she flips between psychotic killer and caring mother effortlessly.  Everything about Essie’s performance in the climactic battle is chilling and unnerving.  The unpredictability continues here, as we are led to believe the book will perfectly predict the outcome of the movie, starting with the killing of the dog.  (That’s a scene that’s going to stick with me for a really long time.)  Ultimately, Sam is a resourceful kid, and once again we are forced to recalibrate our protagonist/antagonist expectation.  The Babadook gives itself a tough task of using Act 1 to set up Sam as the antagonist and Amelia as the protagonist, but by Act 3, we have the reverse and it makes perfect sense in the context of the world.  The epilogue was an equally surprising conclusion, with the Babadook now subjugated by Amelia.  It ultimately makes the most sense of any of the options given, as no clues are given to actually kill the Babadook.

Beyond the fear of the unknown, much of the terror from above comes from a combination of atmospheric terror and superb acting.  Both of these are very well done.  If there is a place the scares tone down some, it would be from the “showpiece” stuff involving the Babadook itself.  The voice was gravelly and poorly produced, and the ultimate reveal of seeing the Babadook descend upon Amelia was a bit on the laughable side.  When that happened I was left with a “that’s it?” feeling.  I know these were probably budgetary constraints, but they did ultimately detract from the experience.  However, I haven’t even mentioned the creepiest thing in the movie – the book itself.  That thing is just disturbing.  Whoever created it deserves an award.  The illustrations and use of black-and-white matched the tone of the movie to a T.

Horror movies do not tend to have an agenda beyond scaring audiences, but much of the brilliance of The Babadook is its focus on those quieter moments involving the relationship between Amelia and Samuel.  Amelia is a broken person raising what appears to be a broken boy, desperate for any sort of affection.  It makes for an interesting dynamic throughout the movie, especially in the final battle between Samuel and his possessed mother.  Samuel, like most kids, is smarter than we give him credit for.  He understands that Amelia has very real issues that ultimately make her an unfit mother.  Most children expect their parents to protect them from monsters, but Samuel has built himself an arsenal.  He also talks about how he just wants to protect Amelia from the Babadook.  It makes for some very jarring interactions where Samuel acts as an authority figure within the household, innately aware that the two of them will not survive the Babadook without his intervention.  I think we have to give Samuel some big credit for forgiving Amelia in the end, as many of the things she said while possessed would have left the deepest emotional scars on people who are acutely aware of what is happening.  For Samuel to power through and understand that his mother didn’t mean any of what she was saying is something to be commended.

Or did she mean some of it?  Amelia never got over the trauma of losing her husband.  She probably does hate Samuel to a degree.  The battle with the Babadook ultimately turns into Amelia letting go of the trauma of losing her husband, and winds up forcing her to protect Samuel, something neither of them thought she was capable of. 

Now is a good time to comment on Essie Davis’ performance, which was fantastic and terrifying.  We recently talked about Rose Leslie having to play multiple roles in The Honeymoon; Davis has a similar evolution, going from downtrodden basketcase to possessed monster.  She proves to be scarier visually than the Babadook himself, able to contort her face into such looks of rage that she proves to be the real monster the audience should fear.  It will be a long time before I forget the look of determined anger on her face as she chokes the life out of her own dog or the screaming banshee unleashing a tsunami of hate upon her own son.  I’m not sure how good of an actress she is, as my only other experience with Essie Davis is a small part in The Matrix Trilogy, but my curiousity is definitely piqued.  Also, it was good call “uglying her up” and turning her into the female version of Dave Mustaine.  That certainly added to the experience I think.

The Babadook takes many of the best aspects from classic horror to create something completely unique and scary in today’s horror genre.  Jennifer Kent managed to make less more and relied on her actors to generate the bulk of the scares, and it paid off.  There were some effects that begged to have more budget put into them, and Noah Wiseman had a few hiccups.  In the end, this is a great horror movie that I’d recommend to any masochists out there.

+ Freaking scary
+ Builds terror through means “unconventional” by today’s standards
+ Essie Davis turns in an amazing performance
+ The book itself is one of the all-time great movie props
- Effects were cheesy
- Noah Wiseman had a couple rough patches

Grade: A-

Phil

60 Comments
Bryan
5/5/2015 11:39:55 am

Damn Phil, I'm not sure my Economics Senior Sem paper was that long.

Let's get this started - I had a nightmare the night of watching this movie. I drank 2 Pepsi's in one day, in front of my family and students. That was more frightening than Babadook.

Babadook was a one or two good scene show. If one were to find it frightening through and through, I'm slightly worried for how they spend their day. Is there a boogie-man around every corner?

The bababdook crittering on the wall was disturbing, but the rest was either predictable, or maybe I put my mind in a place not to be disturbed. You know what's disturbing, when your son does't sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time, your wife wakes up in the middle of the night holding him, and thinks it the dog.

Much like Sean's comment, I wanted the kid to be gone for the first 30 minutes of the show, but after that he was my favorite character. When he pushed that girl out of the tree house, I was on board. Go get 'em, my man! He killed it as a stressed out child actor.

The mystery movement in the basement was hokey and tying back to her husband's death was incredibly predictable. The unnecessary foreshadowing of the dog's strangulation killed what could have been a disturbing moment.

I'm not sure how to grade this so-called horror movie, it wasn't engaging the first time through, and I'll probably never watch it again. Looking at the spreadsheet, it was about as enjoyable as Four Rooms. Starting grade, D+.

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Jon
5/5/2015 12:07:39 pm

What'd your dad think?

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Jeff
5/5/2015 04:23:41 pm

B+. The more I think about it, the more I liked it. Psychological thriller. Horror is in your head. No cheap scares. No gore. Babadook became more powerful the more u resisted. I think that is a corollary to the mother's resistance to accept her husband's death and all the guilt that followed. I think Babadook was a manifestation of this extreme repression that led to her descent into madness. When she finally accepted her hudband's death - finally celebrating her son's birthday on his real day of birth, Babadook is not gone but is something she controls.

Jon
5/5/2015 04:53:46 pm

Bryan, you're out. Bryan's dad, you're in.

Sean
5/5/2015 05:20:07 pm

I want to like the comment about replacing Bryan with his dad

Bryan
5/5/2015 07:52:13 pm

I'm taking our $37.20 with me. Adios! And Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Phil
5/5/2015 01:48:50 pm

I think it's funny that the one thing you found disturbing, I found silly.

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Sean
5/5/2015 05:18:54 pm

I have nightmares about Pepsi too. Coke is the infinitely superior product. How many times has anyone gone to a restaurant and ordered a Coke only to have the waitress say Is Pepsi Ok. It never happens in reverse unless the person is asking about Mt Dew

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Bobby
5/5/2015 08:08:50 pm

My mom and her best friend are Pepsi fiends..and I see it all the time when we go out to eat, that they ask for Pepsi and get the "is Coke okay" Meh, Coke.

Sean
5/6/2015 01:06:06 am

Finally an explanation for why you turned out like you did

Shane
5/8/2015 04:43:57 pm

Hard to come back from that burn.

Bryan
5/5/2015 11:40:27 am

Phil, can you explain the kid's hiccups?

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Phil
5/5/2015 12:59:53 pm

His performance lacked subtlety of any kind. He was either zero or all out. When he was supposed to be scared, I didn't buy him being actually scared.

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Bryan
5/5/2015 02:06:12 pm

Zero? To me, he was either not panicking or having a meltdown. I bought it. Loved his character.

Shane
5/8/2015 04:44:47 pm

I agree. He gained or lost brevity in the scenes that needed him to do so in order to advance the plot.

Bryan
5/5/2015 12:07:07 pm

Phil asked me, so I'll carry it here. Where and with whom did you watch?

I watched in a dark room, surround sound, with my dad. One thing more this reminded me of- with an infant, and since my dad can barely hear, all our TVs have closed captioning on. Maybe this had an effect.

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Phil
5/5/2015 12:12:05 pm

I can't imagine being immersed in any movie holding a baby with closed caption on. I'd probably have a similar feeling as you in that environment. A movie like this thrives on immersion.

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Bryan
5/5/2015 12:16:43 pm

I wasn't holding Foster, we just have CC on by default and my dad needs it.

Jon
5/5/2015 12:38:38 pm

Hooray for subtitles! I watched it by myself at 1 AM in a reasonably well lit room.

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Phil
5/5/2015 12:43:48 pm

Maybe wearing headphones added to my immersion?

Jon
5/5/2015 12:52:25 pm

Maybe. I'm sure there were all kinds of layered noises that were only perceptible with headphones, so I could imagine it put you more on edge.

Bryan
5/5/2015 04:54:49 pm

Jeff's B+ debunks our closed captions theory.

Phil
5/6/2015 01:52:28 am

I think Jeff dug some deeper themes out and wasn't necessarily scared, while the bulk of your review focused solely on not being scared. If "was I scared" was your only criterion, then I buy your D+ in that review. Truthfully, it feels like you all were in the same room watching two different movies.

Bryan
5/6/2015 02:34:27 am

I'm back. I know you were worried I left with all our money.

I agree with Jeff's breakdown, "Babadook became more powerful the more u resisted. I think that is a corollary to the mother's resistance to accept her husband's death and all the guilt that followed. I think Babadook was a manifestation of this extreme repression that led to her descent into madness. When she finally accepted her hudband's death - finally celebrating her son's birthday on his real day of birth, Babadook is not gone but is something she controls. "

I see the themes, I saw the themes - I just don't think they were engaging enough to get past the D+ to C range. If being thrilled rather than scared is our measure of success, it wasn't thrilling. I didn't see any of the turns in the story as surprising. [pun] It was too scripted. [/pun]

Shane
5/8/2015 04:46:31 pm

I watched in a well lit room with my buddy Tim. There were probably roaches too. Since I'm a grown up, I didn't freak out about bugs in the movie.

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Sean
5/5/2015 04:45:03 pm

Remind me to never get a handy from someone with the grip strength to pull out her own tooth with her bare hands. Topper had that experience one time

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Phil
5/6/2015 01:37:24 am

Everyone go home. The comment of the year voting is over and it's not even Memorial Day.

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Like Bot
5/8/2015 04:48:18 pm

Like

Shane
5/8/2015 04:48:03 pm

Key is "one time" because she ripped his dick off, ending any sort of chance at a second time.

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Sean
5/5/2015 05:36:26 pm

That movie was bonkers I don't know what Bryan was watching.

Too echo in Phils themes of flip flopping antagonists, they did a masterful job at that. As I said the other day, I hated the kid so much for being a creepy looking noisy brat that I turned it off and went to bed. Couldn't power through it tired. I'm glad I went for it tonight. By making the kid look insane in Act 1 and look like he was driving the mother crazy it distracted you from the fact that she was super disheveled looking from the get go and doesn't keep a decent home. After completing the movie you can think back at the beginning and recognize she was always the crazy one and his acting out was a result of her.

I like a movie with a twist that is a- a successful twist that wasn't painfully obvious and b- once you learn of it and look back you can see that it was supported throughout but hidden by misdirection.

I watched in a well lit room while Mindy worked. I'd say she was about 20% watching but multiple times commented on it being crazy. She gave it a B

The book was great, I loved that it didn't just come back but it came back altered and amped up. Disagree with Bryan about the book/dog. Once she started turning we were anxiously worried every time the dog appeared. After she killed it however we were not expecting Samuel to go all Keving McAllister vs the Wet Bandits.

Following the basement back in the bedroom the staring into the dark corner of the room while monster arms hung in the air was pretty lame, I could've done without that.

This round has a much stronger race for Best Actress and a new leader in the clubhouse for creepiest looking little kid.

I will agree with Bryan that I was proud of Samuel for punching his cousin out of the tree house. He should've yelled out "this is a bully free zone"

A-. The lameness of the final final showdown and the weirdness that the Babadoik now eats worms in the basement leave added the - to my A

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Bryan
5/5/2015 07:50:27 pm

The imdb text gave away the story line, "A single mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles with her son's fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around "

Also, kids without dads our kids with dad drunks are 95% of all school discipline and social work issues. I spent the length of the movie wondering if England offers free support services to students.

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Jon
5/5/2015 08:11:13 pm

Pretty sure it takes place in Australia, though that's from the fact that the principals are all Australian and not from something in the movie.

Like Bot
5/8/2015 04:49:29 pm

Likes Wet Bandits mention

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Jon
5/5/2015 07:44:36 pm

Locke is a very good movie, and one I probably prefer to the Babadook, but I am very happy with my veto right now. I didn't add this movie to my radar when all the strong reviews were coming out last fall, but after Honeymoon and Babadook, I'm welcoming horror movies into the brotherhood of film. When I look back on Round 6 in the future, it'll be remembered for sitting in that submersible and talking about the LEGO Movie, and when I officially got over horror bias.

The Babadook didn't scare me or keep me up at night, but that doesn't mean it wasn't disturbing in its own way. I disagree with Phil when he says 'most horror movies do not have an agenda beyond scaring the audience.' That's a broad statement that could be applied to bad movies in general. I think all movies have a driving theme or idea behind them, and the horror in the Babadook comes from how taboo its central ideas are. Can a mother hate her child? Would it be better if my son hadn't been born? Why won't this fucking kid leave me alone? I'm not a parent, but culturally, it feels like the act of parenting has been fetishized and micro-managed to a ridiculous degree. By interrogating these deeply held ideals and presenting a counter-example, The Babadook isn't just a good horror movie, it's a good movie, period.

If it's in a word or in a look, you can't get rid of the Badabook. That is some Seuss-ian genius right there. I'm going to assume that Jennifer Kent had the first part before coming up with the Babadook work to rhyme it with, because it's a perfect fit for the film. The Babadook is evil, and you can't avoid it because it's in words and looks, and once you inevitably get it, you can't get rid of it. It leads me to this tidy thesis of life being rashers of pain, some great and some small, rashers that leave psychic scars which aren't going anywhere. The Babadook presents two paths from this plain fact; a person can choose unhealthy ignorance, or honest dealing and self-knowledge. The former leads directly to dog strangulation, while the latter doesn't mean escape, but mere coexistence. Rabbit Hole, another movie about grief, uses the metaphor of grief being a rock you carry in your pocket; it's always there and you eventually get used to it, but you can occasionally forget it. The Babadook is a rich enough film where I'm sure some of you came to different conclusions.

Something I'm surprised no one's clearly stated yet is that the Babadook is not real in the world of the movie. Of the two people that might see it, one is an imaginative child, and the other is a sleep-deprived maniac with a pretty severe case of PTSD or its equivalent. The child doesn't really ever see it either. I don't know if you guys have ever been sleep-deprived, but it makes a mind hallucinate. Of the several times it's happened to me, the first was during a specific period during freshman year of college, where I was driving back to Evansville from Haubstadt and a highway overpass turned into a giant panda and swiped a paw at my car. I even swerved to avoid it. Cutting out that common experience and pasting it into the film, Amelia's just really, really tired at a very sensitive time in her life, and is seeing things that are breaking down her impulse control.

Let's knock down the evidence. With the book itself, she used to be a writer of children's books. Per Fight Club, she got stuck in an insomniac trance and put the book together some time before the events of the movie, and glued it back together after she ripped it up. Noticeably, it doesn't come back after she burns it. There are no roaches in her kitchen and there is no hole in her wall. Her neighbor knows how difficult things get around Samuel's birthday. Anything that just happens to Amelia e.g. the phone calls, the skittering, the possession is being imagined. The outliers are Samuel being pulled up the stairs, but that's viewed from Amelia's perspective, so he could've been running away from her. The other one is whatever she vomited up. I'm stumped on that one, but the Babadook-is-in-her-head evidence is stronger than that black throw-up. Like The One I Love, The Babadook is so much more interesting as a emotional story. I don't care about a forcefield surrounding the cabin, and I don't care about the version of this film that's a ghost story.

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Phil
5/6/2015 01:50:15 am

The "it's all in your head theory" is interesting enough, but I don't know if I buy it. I can believe that 90% of it is explainable from a combination of psychosis and Samuel "playing along." However, I think he'd stop playing along as things got more intense. You brought up half of the evidence damning this theory (the black vomit), but you failed to bring up the other half. If the Babadook isn't real in this world, how do you explain the epilogue where Amelia feeds it? By this point, she has her wits about her, so wouldn't the Babadook have disappeared by this point?

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Sean
5/6/2015 02:13:27 am

Not to put words in Jon's mouth but under this assumption it would be that she has found a way to live with her grief peacefully even if it occassionally can keep her on edge (bending her over backwards briefly before she regained control). She's locking it up and revisiting it just often enough to keep it at bay and keep her and Samuel safe. Also, it neatly allows for a sequel.

Jon
5/6/2015 06:58:05 am

The epilogue, which is again just her, happens two weeks after she killed her dog and almost killer her son. Is she going to be cured of her six-year-long problems in two weeks? Definitely not, if the movie is treating mental illness honestly, which I think it does. It doesn't get cured as much as it gets managed, and she's managing the Babadook by talking it down and feeding it worms. If Samuel got down there, he'd find a bunch of bowls with worms in them.

Jon
5/6/2015 07:01:16 am

As far as Samuel playing along, the Babadook is just the word he's using to describe concepts too complex for him, like the resentment Amelia feels for him and her unwillingness to deal with it. He's also a kid who believes in monsters, and his mother acting the way she's acting is not disabusing him of the idea. It's a whole lot easier for him to think she's possessed by the Babadook than some major part of her hates him.

Phil
5/6/2015 09:00:27 am

I still think you're reaching here. Is there anything to telegraph a suggestion that this was all in Amelia's head? How many bowls does this woman own? I do feel like a lot of the middle act is spent putting the audience in Amelia's headspace, but too many supernatural things are shown for me to buy this hypothesis.

Jon
5/6/2015 09:44:23 am

Those things are shown to you through Amelia's perspective and she is wholly unreliable. We can't trust anything she sees. Just one example would be her seeing the Babadook costume in the police station. Is it more likely she's losing her shit, or that the cops are involved with the Babadook? I suppose it's possible that she was both mentally iffy and the Babadook is possessing her, but that's overly complicated in a movie that very clearly laid out her thought process. Amelia losing it is enough.

Bobby
5/10/2015 08:16:15 am

As mentioned in my review, I'm on the same level as Jon with this.

If you need to believe that the Babadook is a real element here, it's still something that would have come about solely because of Amelia's mental struggles. Otherwise, we'd like have some explanation of its existence beyond just in Amelia's presence.

Even when Samuel is scared, and seems to see the Babadook, we don't see it... we only get a glimpse of it when Amelia sees it. And When Samuel askes, "will I ever get to see it?", her someday seems to basically tell him that, "yes, there's a good chance you'll have to deal with this as well someday." more than telling him she's going to bring him into the basement and show her some supernatural pet living there. A kid believing in monsters and accepting that as the reality for his mother is a much simpler and possibly even better way to explain it... if he can believe in Santa and other things he can accept the Babadook until Amelia is ready to explain it all for what it really is.

As for the bowls, we don't know what she really does with them, only that she 'sees' them disappear into a dark corner... we see that, because she sees that.

Phil
5/11/2015 04:35:38 am

The more I think about this, the more I'm inclined to agree with you all. Truth be told, nothing you all said convinced me - I talked with a coworker and he brought up the bug scene, and that's where it clicked for me.

Originally, I thought the scene with the child protective services or whoever those people are was a bit of a throwaway scene, but it actually might be the most important scene in the movie. It's the only time we see Amelia actively engage with anyone but Samuel when something supernatural is occurring. And they do not suffer her delusions like Samuel does. Once they question her, the bugs go away. This is enough to establish to me that everything can be questioned now.

I can't do it right now b/c I'm at work and Netflix is blocked in every way here, but does Samuel react to the black vomit at all? Does he attempt to clean it or anything? Perhaps even Samuel's imagination has its limits.

I love when stuff like this happens - a scene of seemingly no significance to the main plot winds up being, to me anyway, the crux of reality in the movie world. Congrats Babadook, you just jumped from an A- to an A in my book.

Bobby
5/11/2015 08:01:07 am

Whoa... we're on the internet, Phil... there's no room for changing your opinion in the face of good reason!

Really though, that's a good point about that scene... Also, in the car when she crashes, that guy yelling at her through the window certainly didn't react to any bugs crawling around her lap.

As for the vomit scene, he doesn't actually react until she falls down... and pays no attention to the black mess on the floor.
http://i.gyazo.com/0af92bfa871f87b32d77d61c97413284.gif

Jon
5/5/2015 07:46:24 pm

As psychological horror goes, this is an intense descent into madness. The main driver of this is the excellent sound design. Babadook itself is simply a good word, and they get so many uses out of it. Those phone calls are perfect. I am also very interested in how much of the noises coming out of Amelia's mouth were altered, and how much was Essie Davis contorting her vocal cords into unnatural shapes. Goddamn, the sounds coming out of her mouth. The score very nicely complemented the film, underlaid as it was with what sounded like fairy tale music. Creeping insanity tends to be best communicated with quick cuts, and there was plenty of that here, particularly in the reading of the revised book. There's also a phenomenal frame towards the end, where crazed Amelia is stomping through the hallway in the center of the frame, and a cowering Samuel peeks out in the left corner. I kept expecting jump scares or musical stings, and was very pleased they were never resorted to. I don't think there's a bad technical choice at all to be had here, and everything feeds into a convincing portrayal of a person's mind betraying them.

I'll echo the praise for Essie Davis. A lot is asked of her, and she delivers. There's always a lot going on in her face, from stoicism to envy to sheer panic, and she knocks each one down. I'll stick up for Noah Wiseman. I do think there's a minimum age where prior to reaching it, it's impossible to determine if a kid is a good actor. I don't know if kids younger than say, 10, have the mental capacity to fully inhabit a character that is different from themselves. That said, I think the best a viewer can hope for in a very young performance is naturalism and/or appropriate reactions, and I think Wiseman nailed that. I didn't get a single false moment from him. I could sense how much he loved to perform magic, and I got his shaky courage when he needed to defend himself. I think Wiseman has as full an understanding as possible of what was happening to Samuel in the film, and I think it's one of the better pre-teen portayals I've seen in recent memory.

The last thing I'll mention about the Babadook is how much it reminded of other, better movies. The first half reeks of We Need to Talk About Kevin, a movie about a poisonous mother-son relationship that also dares to portray a small child as aggressively awful. The second half is pure Take Shelter, in which a father descends into lunacy and takes active steps to indulge in it. I don't bring this up as a negative. Part of the reason I love those two films so much is because I'm so interested in their themes, themes that the Babadook shares. If you have to steal, steal from the best.

I call those two movies better, because for all its strengths, The Babadook does still resort to unpleasantness during its climax. There's a cap on how much yelling and screaming I can tolerate. I will agree that the connection between the dead father and Amelia's psychosis is too neatly laid out. While thematically rich overall, Kent does plot things out in a very straightforward path. A little more disorder would've been appropriate for how mentally disjointed the characters are. Those themes very much hit me in my brain's interest centers, so I was with the film throughout. I love to hear about the unacted-upon dark impulses and thoughts of parents, and would strongly recommend We Need to Talk About Kevin in that regard. That movie's an A, but this one's a B+.

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Bryan
5/5/2015 08:00:32 pm

I had not thought of thinking of this outside the horror genre. My default basis for horror or thriller is Mothman Prophecies which I haven't seen in a decade or more.

I'm leaning C now, can I do that? Maybe another review will talk me down again, maybe I'm just feeling generous holding my child.

Note to self, nominate Mothman.

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Phil
5/6/2015 01:46:53 am

Put a pin in We Need to Talk About Kevin... That's been on my potential nominee list for quite some time.

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Bryan
5/6/2015 03:50:23 am

I read this as nominating Kevin Hay, or some guy named Kevin. Upon the third reading, I finally get it.

Sean
5/6/2015 02:40:34 am

I suppose this comment is more about movies in general than specific to The Babadook, but this round featured 2 movies The Babadook and The Honeymoon that bucked the current norm of large casts in Hollywood. In a world where every other movie features an assemblage of super-heroes and we get a retread ensemble rom-com copy of Love Actually every year, studios continue to push out movies with huge casts in the hopes they will generate maximum box office draw. Is it a coincidence that we have remarked on these two movies as some of the best acted performances we have reviewed? I don't think so, the smaller cast has allowed a greater immersion into the character for the actor which manifests itself on screen as a great performance. The best actors alive show up to set for a day and a half for 11 minutes of screen time and you're not going to get their A game.

I imagine the smaller casting is more prevalent in the horror genre where despite the lure of using crazy effects to deliver the scares tend to have lower budgets. If there is one thing I've learned listening to Carolla rant about making Road Hard, a big budget doesn't necessarily mean special effects it means time for reshoots and edits and actors salaries. Would The Babadook have let Johnny Depp put on a zoot suit and portray the titular monster to draw in the box office at the expense of their creative product? Hopefully not but then again the monster itself was the lamest part of the movie.

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Phil
5/6/2015 04:38:33 am

Couple thoughts here...

First, there's an obvious Avengers reference in your thinking Riley. I don't think you can compare anything the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is doing to anything else in film history. The MCU does have movies like this with relatively smaller casts - Captain America 2 has alot of people running around for sure, but only a handful of principle actors to follow. The Avengers benefits from all this character development like a serialized TV show would. Tony Stark as a character benefits from having four movies of development to help explain his actions in Age of Ultron; trying to stuff that into one movie would be impossible. These smaller movies allow us to see the full character growth in a more consumable package; the MCU is asking its audience to recall years of world-building in previous movies so it can focus on spectacle over narrative when it comes time for a showpiece like Age of Ultron.

The ensemble rom-coms are a different beast entirely. There can be good ensemble movies out there, but they have to be plot-driven above character-driven for me to care. That's probably why I liked Ocean's 11 far more than American Hustle for example. Those Garry Marshall ensembles around holidays tend to be scattered and unfocused I imagine.

I think it's really a point of motivation. An actor is going to take a lead role in a small cast independent movie for one of two reasons: 1) They're a leading actor that loves the concept (guessing that's the case with Locke or Birdman) or 2) they're not going to get a shot to star in a bigger budget movie without another starring role and they're going to give it their all. Both are going to result in better performances on average. Showing up in New Year's Eve is either a favor to a friend or a paycheck.

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Sean
5/6/2015 04:56:48 am

Yet they continue to add characters

Phil
5/6/2015 05:08:40 am

I don't the the MCU is developing additional characters... I think they're developing replacement characters.

Southern Bugs
5/8/2015 03:30:03 pm

All the bugs in the wall ain't shit.

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Bobby
5/10/2015 08:20:59 am

I'm glad we finally got another horror movie in here. After Oculus was vetoed, I wondered if we'd ever let another one pass. Quality veto this round, Jon!

As we all know, the genre is tough to succeed in these days. A lot of us seem desensitized to so much that jump scares and gore aren't going to cut it. If we go back and look at some old favorite horror movies, they just don't give us the same feeling they once did. A prime example, for me, is Children of the Corn. I watched it a few years ago for the first time since I was pretty young... and I was so confused as to why I (or anybody) thought it was terrifying. I'm pretty sure that movie was a part of the reason my friends and I found our games of midnight corn tag so damn scary.. and fun. But, it was all in the expectations and in the mind... much like the Babadook.

First off, the acting was great. Davis and Wiseman had a pretty tall order, since pretty much everything about this film depended on them portray such a wide range of emotion and expression. We've talked about child actors multiple times and how it can be so hit or miss... I think Wiseman was brilliant. It's not difficult to make kids seem creepy in horror movies, but I think the Babadook required more more than that from Samuel, and Wiseman delivered. I'd give him a best actor nod.. maybe not a win, but a consolation gift basket. Davis deserves a nomination too, I'd say. Even more so, the two worked really well together, which sold a lot of the emotion throughout the movies.

Starting with the book, The Babadook does such a great job of building itself up... figuratively and literally within the movie. The book was such a well done prop... with perfectly simple, but creepy, art... especially with the interactive tabs and pop ups. The look of it reminds me of a game that Bryan and I play(ed), called Don't Starve. The art is so simplistic, but still does such a good job of getting the desired sensation out it. I'm with Jon, in that I think Amelia wrote the book and that it was an expression of mental health and PTSD, more than anything else.

While I don't think the Babadook is real, I also don't think it matters. If it is real, I'd see it as a manifestation of such powerful thoughts and trauma... which is a common occurrence for supernatural elements. But that can be talked about more in the above comments.

There is a nice slow build.. the first 20-30 minutes felt longer to me, but it wasn't a bad feeling, and that shifted pretty drastically as the movie went on from there.. and it was over quicker than I expected.
The success of the film really stands within its ability to keep you unsure of things... and to immerse audience into what Amelia is seeing. Making us believe, at first, that Samuel is the one with the real issues really sets us up for the flip when we realize it's really Amelia's mental state that's the focus here... which really should have been obvious considering the situation, but they distract us just enough, especially since it's easy to fall for the 'creepy kid' act, when that isn't at all what this was about. More importantly, this is how Amelia saw it, too.

I agree that the Babadook visuals weren't impressive, but the more I think about it, the less I care. Just like the book, the power wasn't in the details or fancy visuals... but the presentation and surrounding elements. Also, this is what Amelia was seeing, and if anything... the exaggerated and sort of unrealistic depiction were simply the delusions that were growing stronger inside of her mind... just as the book said it would.

The ending, while feeling cozy and happy, was actually pretty spot on and handled well. A friend of mine recently watched Six Feet Under for the first time, and I was doing a rewatch of it as well. One of the biggest issues she had with the show, was how they handled a characters PTSD... as there was while where it felt like they just washed it away after he confronted it. This seems like a common way to handle it in entertainment, as a simple way of telling the audience to face their problems head on, and all will be cured. But, as Jon noted as well, realistically it's not so simple. Amelia had a break through and is progressing, but the issues/Babadook won't just disappear right away, if ever. As the book reads, you can't get rid of it.... but it doesn't say you can't manage it and progress to a healthy state, which is the path she sets on while managing the creature she's trying to keep locked away.

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Bobby (cont.)
5/10/2015 08:23:05 am


I started writing this review with an A- in mind, but the more I sat here and thought and typed about it... the better I felt about everything the movie offered. I felt some chills a few times, and while there weren't any genuine scares... the overall presence was almost always there. Great acting on top of a well built story that deals with a topic we don't often see presented much beyond a passing thought or forced message. Mental Illness is something that many of us can hardly ever understand to the point that a lot of people deal with it, especially with the weak portrayals we often see in the media. The Babadook, on the other hand, gives us a strong visualization of the terror that can enter and build inside somebody's life. Straight A.

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Tom
5/10/2015 08:51:13 am

This is an intriguing film. I had wanted to watch it since I heard an NPR interview with someone involved with the movie although I forget who. I am glad I watched even though generally horror is not my thing. This movie is far more a psychological thriller than a horror film. The twist in this movie probably makes M. night ponder his existence.

The child is a perfect choice for the shrill and maddeningly incomprehensible shrieks he can produce. His peculiarity belies what is revealed in the end to be the accurate prediction of the "baba dooks" appearance. We watch as the mother descends slowly into maddness driven by the loss of her husband. The question of this movie becomes did the son see the madness in his mother and create the monsters that filled his room to explain this? Was the babadook nothing more than the insanity brought on by major depression or psychosis of the mother? Is this what it would look like to watch a person go mad through their eyes? Or is the babadook real? fascinating questions from a movie with great cinematography, and direction.

B+

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shane
5/13/2015 07:05:52 am

Since I'm already behind and I let the Like Bot do my work for me, I'll keep this brief.

I have a hard time getting into horror movies because I find them generally boring. It's like the over-CGI'd movies... I just can't suspend belief that much. Like in Charlie's Angels where Cameron Diaz is able to jump ten feet in the air and punch a guy out with one punch. It's dumb. Horror movies require super-powered ghouls and ghosts hellbent on just acting like psychopaths no matter the cost and it just never resonates with me. It's a fine genre, but just not one I'm generally interested in.

Fortunately, Babadook stays out of the purely sadistic super-powered by providing a mental aspect to the plot. Mr. Babadook isn't really that scary, but that lady is going bonkers. Sleep deprivation is real. This aspect makes it interesting enough to get it into the B range.

I can't go too high, though, as I found myself just wanting it to end. It feels like there were 5 endings and I got bored. Horror movies are always hard to end, so this isn't surprising.

By the way, Blair's kids say that this is supposed to be the scariest movie ever or something. Whatever. Those kids ain't shit.

B-

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Jon
5/13/2015 12:47:48 pm

I have a hard time calling this movie scary. William Friedkin, who directed the Exorcist, called the Babadook the scariest movie he's ever seen. You would assume he knows what he's talking about, but then, I didn't think the Exorcist was scary either.

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Jon
5/13/2015 12:51:02 pm

Blair's got Best Review locked up if she shows one of our movies to her kids and filters her review through their thoughts.

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Sean
5/18/2015 04:04:16 am

*cough *cough I got more handjob jokes holstered to secure my top spot just in case

Cooker
6/8/2015 04:45:40 am

I’m definitely not a fan of modern horror movies, although I do prefer the psychological approach compared to the pointless gore-fest. Creepiness in these psychological movies is great and the Babadook was definitely creepy. However, this movie’s fatal flow for me was the lack of likeable characters. I don’t mind seeing good-relatable people driven into madness, but seriously, it only took me one line of spoken dialogue to determine that this kid was going to be an annoying little shit and as for the mom, I realize that you suffered a horrific family tragedy in the death of your husband, but when she snaps back at the other ladies at the birthday party or even when her son tried to hug her, man, what a bitch! With a lack of likeable characters I take the approach, kill these people and let’s get this over with.
Now, the reading of the book scene is great. And all the craziness that drives the pair to turn into nutbars is fine. I simply just didn’t like them. And man, that voice Ba ba ba, dook dook dook. Creepy! And it was funny when the kid screams to his mom, “do you wanna die?”
So, the mom gets possessed by the Babadook and becomes an even bigger nutbar: takes a bath fully clothed, sleeps with a violin, breaks the puppy’s neck, did she pull out a tooth at one point?
We eventually get a final showdown where she spews out black liquefied Babadook, the kid flies around like a drunk Peter-Pan, the bed shakes, the dead father appears and his head slices off. I was seriously waiting for the kid to use his Go-Go Gadget catapult and kill the Babadook by hitting it with a rock, but instead the creature flees to the basement where the family keeps it there and feeds it a bowl of worms every day. WTF? Did anyone else think of the classic Simpsons Halloween episode, “fish heads, fish heads.” Creepy movie, absolutely. Likeable mother and son duo, not for this guy. Final grade: C

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