The Babadook (2014)

[baumer]

Discuss

[The Stingray]

From main thread.

 

The Babadook is probably the best horror movie I have seen since Kill List in 2011. It is an elegantly told, old school, psychological horror tale, filled to the brim with atmosphere and ambiguity. It has in spades what most mainstream horror movies sorely lack, which is restraint and an understanding of how to build of suspense. The acting and characterization is of a standard rarely seen in horror movies. Also, the titular monster has to be one of the most memorable movie monsters in recent memory.

 

A

[Jack Nevada]

Horror masterpiece. Painful, uncomfortable and terribly tragic, this thing gets under your skin in a way few movies can. Great performance by the mother.

[JohnnyGossamer]

Dammit. I want to see this one pretty desperately. High praise all around, comparisons to Polanski and two of the more discerning viewers on the forums giving it the big thumbs up.

[CoolioD1]

Hmm, this was a great idea (especially the metaphor at the end) but I think it was soured a lot by subpar direction. it was edited like a student film. though it's recommendable thanks to Essie Davis's absolutely incredible performance. She's reminiscent of Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby with the same crazy eyes as Sissy Spacek in Carrie. It's performance of the year material.

[Jake Gittes]

Best horror film in several years for sure. By which I don't mean it's the most aggressively scary, but in terms of direction, writing and acting it's hard to find a strong recent comparison. The movie The Babadook most reminded me of is actually We Need to Talk About Kevin - they both fearlessly explore the guilt of a mother who doesn't love her child, except Kevin doesn't go supernatural and The Babadook does. But they are equally effective in the end. 

 

And yes, special shout-out to Essie Davis. She goes from moth-like, on-the-verge-of-death vulnerability to bug-eyed intensity that rivals Nicholson in The Shining, and then becomes a figure of such strength it's impossible not to root for her. It's an iconic horror performance in the making.

[baumer]

Worst horror film in years.  Yes, the acting is absolutely incredible by the two leads but beyond that, there's very little to the film.  I went into this film thinking it was going to be some incredibly suspenseful and even terrifying film.  What I got was a story with no explanation and we of course are supposed to determine if this is real of all in her head.  And if it's all in her head, why did it happen now and not before the book arrives?  Herein lies the problem with this film.  Nothing is explained, nothing is resolved and when it comes down to the horror of the film, it has about as much scares as Ghostbusters.  The library scene at the beginning of Ghostbusters is what you can expect here.  The film tries to capitalize on some nice horror techniques like creepy sounds and some deep voices antagonizing the woman.  And at first, it was creepy.  But as the film plods along and nothing happens for the first hour, you are waiting for an explanation, something, to help us understand why the Babadook is here and what he wants.  Instead we get images of her dead husband telling her he wants the boy.  Then she vomits up blood, kills the dog, and chases her kid around the house.  Then, it just turns to the next day and all is well. After she used her knowledge from Nightmare on Elm Street where she told the Babadook that he wasn't real, she is in her garden the next day and her son is digging up worms so that they can feed whatever beast now lives in the basement.  Uggggg.  

 

Sorry, not my kind of horror film or film for that matter.  Very and utterly disappointed.  

 

Oh and I love how she goes to the police station and they A) laugh at her when she reports someone is stalking her give her looks like she is crazy and C) never follow up on any of this.  What a load of crap.  Imagine if she showed up dead from a real stalker and the police had behaved this way.  They'd be in a whole lot of trouble.  Just a mess of a film.

 

5/10 only because the performances were so good.

[Jake Gittes]

 But as the film plods along and nothing happens for the first hour, you are waiting for an explanation, something, to help us understand why the Babadook is here and what he wants. 

 

The Babadook is a manifestation of her guilt of her husband's death and of her growing resentment of her child. Those feelings terrify her and threaten to consume her entirely, leading to a struggle, during which she is first nearly defeated (almost killing the kid), but then finds the strength to confront her issues and keep them under control (they don't entirely go away, obviously). Tbh, I'm kinda amused by your complaints about lack of explanation, etc., because I thought, if anything, the movie was too unsubtle - I mean, it's literally about people fighting their own demons. 

 

As for why it's only happening now, I think it's safe to assume her anxiety has been steadily building up over the years and what we see in the film is the explosion. We see that seven years after her husband's death, she hasn't found a new partner, isn't sociable, doesn't really look after herself, lives in an old creaky house, and that kid *is* pretty damn annoying. It makes sense that this is the boiling point.

 

I realize why this wouldn't work for someone else, but to me this is a great horror film because it's basically a psychological drama that smartly uses horror tropes to express how the characters feel. As a result, it's a more engaging and intense drama than most dramas, and a more intelligent and insightful horror than most horrors. The scary thing isn't the superficial boogeyman itself (how many of them have we seen by this point?), but what it represents. Which also makes it irrelevant whether the film's events "really" happened; it doesn't matter if they were real or not, it matters that they were real for the characters. To us, The Babadook is very clearly a metaphor, but to them it's something that they actually feel threatened by. 

[Jake Gittes]

Saw a conversation a few days ago on Twitter where one guy said he thought that the mother wrote/drew/made the book herself. That blew my mind a little bit because I never suspected anything like that, but, given her unbalanced state, it makes sense that she would do it and then be in total denial about it. If I remember correctly, she also says in an early scene that she used to write "children's things".

[baumer]

I have a hard time appreciating this kind of movie. I understand many love it but not quite my tempo.

[Jake Gittes]

 I understand many love it but not quite my tempo.

 

[baumer]

I think that's my new favourite saying.  It's fits everything.  

[Jessie]

I'm not going to lie, I thought this was massively overrated. 98% on RT? I mean seriously? I Watched this with a few of my mates the other day with high expectations and found it very predictable. I thought this was going to be some sort of supernatural horror movies but 20 minutes into the film it was obvious it would turn into some metaphoric physiological thriller and from that point all tension went out the window for me. And why even bother having a dog in the movie, everyone knows that dog will die at some point, it's such a cliché.

Some parts baffled me, like if this monster is just her grief then why do both her and her kid suffer the same paranormal instances? Like the kid will see the babadook whilst they are in the car then the mother will hear it? Then out of nowhere the kid passes out and this is suppose to be the metaphoric image of the mothers grief and depression? How does that even make any sense?

There are moments I appreciated, there was a surprising amount of humour in this and it was well done, the mothers performance was brilliant but overall I prefer horrors to be genuinely scary and this film just wasn't. It was a good idea buy the execution just didn't do it for me.

Also someone mentioned somewhere on this thread that the monster will be the most memorable monster in years, are you serious? The Monster itself was pretty bad.

C

Edited January 4, 2015 by jessie

[Goffe]

Essie Davis was amazing, I could feel the hell her character was going through it. I'm looking forward to watch more of her movies.

 

The scene where Amelia confronts her demons The Babadook was great, an excellent pay off for a character that I was rooting the whole movie. the Polanski reference did put a smile on my face.

 

Editing was the biggest problem I had with the movie, it seemed like it was edited by anunskilled amateur. Most cuts took me of out the of film, they drawn attention to themselves due to its amateurishness.

 

It didn't work as a horror film, but it could have worked as a psychological drama. That's why the first half was so much better while last half was bleh, the horror elements only brings the movie down in my opinion.

 

the "Ba-ba-ba... dook! Dook! DOOOOOKH" sound that the Babadook did was fucking awful, more funny than scary.

 

 

not great, but not bad either.  65/100

Edited January 16, 2015 by Goffe Ascending

[solaris]

One of the best horror movies I've seen in recent years, even if it's really more of a pyschological thriller (a la Black Swan) than a true horror. Love the theory that she somehow created the book herself (which really makes sense in hindsight), and love the concept of 'depression' as a tangible monster. And Essie Davis was INCREDIBLE - probably one of the most emotionally intense performances I've seen in a long time. 

 

So yeah, big thumbs up from me. The kind of film which makes you want to go online and read everything you can about it immediately after watching.

Edited January 18, 2015 by solaris

[CJohn]

A horror masterpiece. It floored me. Terrifying and uncomfortable to sit through.

[Jessie]

[baumer]

I don't get it either.

[Jessie]

its one of the big mysteries of the world for me. It was funny because I watched this with my mate who loves horrors and has a habit of recommending shit films. when the film finished we all were in total shock at the high RT score and he would usually try to justify why the shit films he's made us sit through was actually good or worth watching. He did this with Godzilla, hyped it for over a year out and when it didn't live up (imo) he actually convinced himself that it was his favourite movie of all time lol. Anyways when the end credits rolled up at the end of Babadook he looked at me and said, Im Sorry lol. Its probably the first time he's ever admitted to recommending crap lol, so even though I didn't really like this film (though I can admire what they've done, hence my C grade) I will always have that funny memory because of it.

[rockNrollaDIM]

Aw seriously guys? Is this just another overhyped critical darling? Jeff Wells claims it to be Best Picture worthy. I'll check it out soon, regardless.