"The Babadook" (2014), A Psychological Horror Film Directed and Written by Jennifer Kent, Starring Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman

[DonRocks]

"The Babadook" has received near-universal acclaim. While I grant that it's scary as hell, I'm also going to venture into the heretical by saying that it's overrated (being "overrated" doesn't mean it's not a terrific film; it just means it's overrated). That said, the two principal actors, Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman, are fantastic - just about perfect in their roles - and writer-director Jennifer Kent is surely a name to remember going forward. A fusion of "Rosemary's Baby," "The Sixth Sense," "The Exorcist," "Halloween," "The Gashlycrumb Tinies," "The Shining," "The Thing," and "Poltergeist," my primary beef with The Babadook is that it's a "best of" melange from all (no, really: ALL) of those films, without any truly original ideas - it's this reason, plus the ending (which simply doesn't work for me), that make me say critics are being too hasty in doling out their unchecked praise. When you finish watching it, go back over my list of films here, and think about how it was influenced by each and every one of them in terms of thematics (instead of "Poltergeist," to take one example, I could have listed any of twenty haunted-house movies, but there's at least one "trait" from each of these films that is strongly represented in "The Babadook" - it's like a highlight reel of horror).

If you like a good, intelligent scare (but don't enjoy body horror or gratuitous violence, because this has relatively little of those), "The Babadook" is a good choice for you - I found it on Netflix, and it's apparently elsewhere as well. And definitely don't let my "overrated" comment mislead you - I absolutely recommend this film.

William Friedkin, director of "The Exorcist," wrote, "I've never seen a more terrifying film than 'The Babadook.'"

"The Babadook" on rottentomatoes.com

"'The Babadook': The Scariest Movie of 2014 is Now on Netflix" by Olivia Armstrong on decider.com

"On "The Babadook," "It Follows," and the New Age of Unbeatable Horror"  by Noel Murray on avclub.com

[DIShGo]

That said, the two principal actors, Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman, are fantastic - just about perfect in their roles - and writer-director Jennifer Kent is surely a name to remember going forward. A fusion of "Rosemary's Baby," "The Sixth Sense," "The Exorcist," "Halloween," "The Gashlycrumb Tinies," "The Shining," "The Thing," and "Poltergeist," my primary beef with The Babadook is that it's a "best of" melange from all (no, really: ALL) of those films, without any truly original ideas - it's this reason, plus the ending (which simply doesn't work for me), that make me say critics are being too hasty in doling out their unchecked praise.

If you like a good, intelligent scare (but don't enjoy body horror or gratuitous violence, because this has relatively little of those), "The Babadook" is a good choice for you - I found it on Netflix, and it's apparently elsewhere as well. And definitely don't let my "overrated" comment mislead you - I absolutely recommend this film.

I watched "The Babadook" last night and enjoyed it, and I am NOT a fan of horror movies. The lead actress was very good, and I appreciate the lack of gratuitous violence and gore in the film.

I disagree with your take on the ending, however. To me, the film was about a mother's descent into madness, resulting from overwhelming grief. Sleep deprived and desperate, she battled her inner demons as she tried to keep her family from falling to pieces. From that perspective, the ending made perfect sense to me.

I agree, there were well-done nods to the films you mentioned in "The Babadook."

[DonRocks]

I watched "The Babadook" last night and enjoyed it, and I am NOT a fan of horror movies. The lead actress was very good, and I appreciate the lack of gratuitous violence and gore in the film.

I disagree with your take on the ending, however. To me, the film was about a mother's descent into madness, resulting from overwhelming grief. Sleep deprived and desperate, she battled her inner demons as she tried to keep her family from falling to pieces. From that perspective, the ending made perfect sense to me.

I agree, there were well-done nods to the films you mentioned in "The Babadook."

Having thought some more about this, I think my initial impression of the ending is incorrect.

-------------------- SPOILER ALERT! --------------------

I watched the film under the assumption that the Babadook turned out to be a real monster after all - most critics seem to think this. However, under the assumption that it was nothing but symbolism, and was not real at all, then the ending is ingenious - and the film itself is a work quite unlike anything I've ever seen. I've seen "descents into madness" before, plenty of times, but never one that exploded into such pure metaphor and surrealism. This really makes me want to watch The Babadook a second time, because at this time, I believe I was "assuming" things were there, that never really were, and if what I'm currently thinking is true, then this is one of the most cutting-edge horror films I've ever seen.

Since watching the film, I've read many critiques of it, and not many critics are coming right out and saying, "The Babadook never existed," but the more I think about it ... the Babadook never existed. One very obscure comment I found on the internet summed up the film almost perfectly in one word: Babadook = Dadabook. It is impossible to understand what that might mean unless you've watched the film.

[Josh]

I watched this movie a while back, and loved it both from a pure-horror perspective (I found it scary as shit), and as a psychological thriller.  I'm gonna watch it again tomorrow and see what else I pick up.  I honestly think I was too into the "horror/thriller" mode the first time I watched it to get into any deeper analysis.