The Babadook | Little White Lies

The Babadook

23 Oct 2014 / Released: 24 Oct 2014

Words by Chris Blohm

Directed by Jennifer Kent

Starring Daniel Henshall, Essie Davis, and Tim Purcell

Two children, a girl and a boy, reading a book together in a dimly lit room.
Two children, a girl and a boy, reading a book together in a dimly lit room.
3

Anticipation.

Low budget. No stars. Big buzz.

4

Enjoyment.

Eerie and unsettling, this is a promising debut from an exciting new talent.

3

In Retrospect.

A Nightmare on Ramsey Street.

Tis the sea­son for great hor­ror movies, so don’t miss this creepy cork­er from Aus­tralian direc­tor Jen­nifer Kent.

As you might expect from some­thing so firm­ly ensconced in the trap­pings of hor­ror, The Babadook is riv­en with grief. Amelia (Essie Davies, in a fiery, trans­for­ma­tive per­for­mance) is a sin­gle par­ent com­ing to terms with the death of her hus­band Oskar fol­low­ing a trag­ic car acci­dent. She blames her­self, hav­ing been at Oskar’s side at the time, en route to the local hos­pi­tal in order to give birth to their son, Samuel.

When the film picks up their sto­ry, Samuel is six years old and a bit of a mis­cre­ant. An ama­teur con­juror, he warns his agnos­tic moth­er about a sin­is­ter and demon­ic man­i­fes­ta­tion that haunts his dreams and skulks around in the shad­ows. Mean­while, a dis­turb­ing pop-up book called Mis­ter Babadook has mys­te­ri­ous­ly tak­en res­i­dence on the shelf in Samuel’s bed­room, fore­shad­ow­ing ter­ri­fy­ing events that will change both of their lives forever.

The epony­mous mon­ster at the heart of direc­tor Jen­nifer Kent’s effec­tive and ulti­mate­ly pro­found crea­ture fea­ture is no wee, tim­o­rous beast­ie; it’s a pris­tine and unnat­ur­al pres­ence that lives in the walls, hides in the base­ment and lingers in the dark­est recess of a vast wood­en clos­et. Noth­ing is safe from this ghast­ly bog­gart, not even the dog. At least, that’s what this tal­ent­ed new Aus­tralian writer/​director would have us believe. Frankly, Kent’s dis­tinct­ly creepy debut is a lit­tle too inter­est­ed in the duplic­i­ty and trick­ery of magi­cians to be tak­en entire­ly at face value.

Ambi­gu­i­ty fuels the ter­ror, and The Babadook is all the bet­ter — and scari­er — for it. How admirable for a movie like this to com­plete­ly side­step easy answers and tidy res­o­lu­tions. Effec­tive, too. Kent’s grim fan­dan­go takes its cues not from more recent (and banal) West­ern chillers like The Con­jur­ing or the dry ice pageant Insid­i­ous, but from the nos­tal­gic pri­mal­ism of direc­tors like Hideo Naka­ta and Takashi Shimizu. The film eschews pedes­tri­an shocks in favour of slow-burn dread before final­ly crank­ing every­thing up for a wit­ty and unex­pect­ed finale.

You might like

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.