It’s an ordinary work night at around six o’clock in the evening, but the silence is deafening. Minutes later, the tranquil setting is disrupted by a “rumbling sound and three sharp knocks” on the door and followed by a beastly voice that screeches, “ba Ba-ba DOOK! DOOK! DOOK!” That’s when you prepare for the worst. This is only the beginning of the terror that Amelia and Samuel encounter in Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014).
Although I’m not one to watch horror, I took a chance on this film while meeting up with some friends. In all honesty, I had severely underestimated the story’s fear factor but was severely caught off guard when I found myself peeking through my fingers about thirty minutes in.
In the thriller, Amelia (Essie Davis), a single mother to Samuel (Noah Wiseman), works a low income job at a care home; while caring for a gifted but troublesome child, she relentlessly mourns her husband’s death, conveyed through her dismal dialogue and the film’s muted filter. The repressed depression takes its toll on our protagonist with her son’s request for a bedtime story, The Babadook, a supposedly adequate book for children. However, we are fooled when the tale of Mister Babadook becomes increasingly sinister, amplified by the gruesome images foreshadowing the events that occur in his actual presence. Initially, it appears as if Amelia is hallucinating, as she tries to balance all the spiraling factors of her life. Her hostile battle with the Babadook persists until Samuel intervenes, and with much nail-biting anticipation, the beast is defenseless…but ever present.
Originally unintended by Kent to function as a horror movie, The Babadook falls into both this genre and that of psychological thriller. When she created the story, Kent wanted to target the detrimental effects of mental illnesses, turning the entire movie into an extended metaphor about the Babadook being a manifestation that torments victims suffering (potentially) from depression. In the film’s last minutes, Amelia is shown anxiously treating the Babadook somewhat like a pet in her basement, as if taming a chronic illness. Similar, yet different, to the concept of man vs. self, Amelia’s inner battle is seemingly flipped inside out when her illness culminates in the physical form of the Babadook- but there are undoubtedly various other interpretations of the film.
The Babadook not only incorporates the right amount of suspense but includes the familiar perception of knowing something unfortunate awaits, which, through Kent’s perspective, is lurking possibly in ourselves. This film is great for those who aren’t too comfortable with riveting and gory horror but who are open to a little bit of ambiguity and “almost-real-life” perplexity. If that sounds like you, this might be right up your alley!