The Babadook

The Babadook 

Director – Jennifer Kent

For a few nights after my first viewing of The Babadook, I found my eyes lingering nervously in the dark corners of my bedroom before I fell asleep. Something about the creature left a lasting impression and The Babadook was the first film to really get under my skin in a while.

The creature is revealed in brief, shadowy moments and stolen glances in the corner of the frame – but from his oddly dapper ensemble to the rattling, croaky voice – The Babadook sent shivers up my spine, despite never really getting a clear look at it.

The Babadook is an Australian feature – the debut of Director Jennifer Kent. The film grew from her short entitled ‘Monster’, which can be found online – and follows the same basic premise.

Essie Davis portrays mum Amelia as she tries to come to terms with the death of her husband, whilst raising her son Sam, played by Noah Wiseman.

The film focuses on the strained relationship between mother and son, with the majority of events taking place within their home. Sam is depicted as demonstrating significant behavioural problems, whether pre-existing or brought on due to the stress of the traumatic life events endured is unclear, and the viewer witnesses Amelia crack as she struggles to cope.

Both actors deliver powerful performances, with Noah Wiseman in particular managing to deliver amazingly as the troubled child without being annoyingly precocious.

The viewer is introduced early on to Sam’s obsession with hunting monsters and nightly ritual of checking every nook and cranny for any trace of such. Whilst understandably a common fear in young children, endearingly there are elements of Sam’s fear that seem to suggest it is exacerbated by his sense of needing to protect his mother, now the sole man of the house. 

Whilst Sam does what he can to protect the family home from the invasion of outside threat, he is oblivious to the very real monster already living with him.

Sams obsession grows as a mysterious children’s book appears on the doorstep – a rhyming tale of an enigmatic creature, ‘The Babadook’ – which seems like something from a nightmare Dr Seuss story.

As the film progresses, it becomes clear that there is more to The Babadook than just a child’s overactive imagination and the film leaves subtle hints as to its true nature, for example – when Amelia notes early on she is an author and has previously written children’s books..

When Sam finds a shard of glass in his soup, he exclaims animatedly to his horrified mother ‘The Badadook did it’. Part of me wondered throughout watching the film whether Sam knew more about the origins of The Babadook than he is given credit for, particularly later on when he heartbreakingly says ‘I know you don’t love me, The Babadook won’t let you’.

Once it becomes clear that The Babadook is a physical representation of the families grief, the decline of Amelia’s mental state and her frequent violent outbursts seem devastatingly real in a way not often portrayed in media.

I was really impressed with the script and dialogue within The Babadook. It doesn’t shy away from sensitive topics and uses the ‘monster’ to give an honest insight into the potential impact of untreated trauma in a candid, unashamed way. There is never any doubt that Amelia loves her son, but her fractured mental state and the grief she is experiencing leads to her saying and doing things no mother would ever want to admit to having thought, even in a moment of madness.

The sense of grief and loneliness is emphasised by the huge house they both live in, decorated solely in cool blues and muted greys, and the setting really highlights how the mother and son are alone in their grief together.

The viewer is told early on that getting rid of The Babadook is not an option – and this turns out to be true. As the film concludes, we see that Amelia and Sam have learned to live with the creature – adopting coping mechanisms to keep it quiet and prevent it from continuing to wreak havoc in their lives. 

The context of the subplot of The Babadook is incredibly moving and adds the emotional connection needed to make the viewer care for the characters. Something about this seemed to amp up the stakes for me and The Babadook has some genuinely creepy scenes that show you don’t need CGI or extensive FX to create a genuinely horrifying monster. The worst ones are often true to life.

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

(One further notable mention that I absolutely have to write about is The Babadook’s emergence as a surprising LGBT icon. Thanks to a category error on Netflix, The Babadook was for a period listed as an LGBT movie – and has since been adopted as an unlikely symbol of pride. Which is just fucking amazing.)