Written and Directed by Jennifer Kent
Director of Photography Radek Ladczuk
Production Designer Alex Holmes
Costume Designer Heather Wallace
Editor Simon Njoo
Composer Jed Kurzel
Sound Designer Frank Lipson
Starring
Essie Davis as Amelia
…
“This monster thing has got to stop, all right?”
…
Review by William D. Tucker.
Amelia works as a caregiver in an elder home. She’s suffering grief which she cannot sufficiently process on her own, and yet she has no one in which she feels she can confide. Her son is six years old and a huge pain in the ass-but she’s not allowed to come right out and say that. Well, she’s come to believe that she’s not allowed to come right out and say it or deal with her stress in some constructive way. And then Amelia’s life is invaded by a demon from a children’s book.
When it rains, right?
Of course, this demon-the titular Babadook-may just be a metaphor or an allegory or a symbol . . . well, it may be those things to the audience watching this movie. It seems like it’s a real thing to the people in the movie, if you follow me on this.
The Babadook is a precise horror story where the monster is mostly kept off screen. We only know its evil in fractional manifestations. Flickering lights. Harassing phone calls. Phantom knocks on the door. Those are the mild, non-spoilery manifestations. This is also a movie which plays on childhood fears of looming shadows and being engulfed by spaces which are larger than you. We see these fear-inducing things from a child’s perspective and then from an adult’s perspective-an adult filled with the fear that they are losing their mind and their autonomy as a person.
The Babadook could just be a horror in the mind of our protagonist. What we might be watching is a confrontation within a wounded psyche . . . I mean, I think that’s what many people come away with in the audience. But Amelia seems to perceive the demon as an actual entity making her life a living hell.
But if the Babadook indeed exists as an entity unto itself-whether as an outside invader ruining Amelia’s life or as some strange thing brought into the world via her profound grief-then it would seem to have a place in the larger ecology of the world Amelia inhabits. The word parasite comes to mind. Maybe, also, scavenger. And also . . . jeez, I’m really walking on spoiler eggshells here.
‘Cause this one’s an experience. You’re not gonna get the full deal from reading a review or someone’s college thesis or what have you about it.
And if you’ve seen it already . . . then you know what’s going on. Or, you know, you’ve formed your own opinion about it.
I guess what I’m trying to say is . . . I see the Babadook as being an entity unto itself. A dangerous, predatory thing taking advantage of its victim’s isolation and lack of connection to other people. I don’t just see it as a metaphor or an allegory or a symbol or whatever. It’s a make believe entity, sure, but I think the movie is incredibly interesting if one examines the Babadook as a bizarre and cruel life form. It has its methods. It has its reasons for being. They’re terrible methods. Its reasons don’t make anything it does less horrible. But it came from somewhere. And it ended up in Amelia’s life.
And, once you see the movie or if you watch it again, riddle me this:
Is anyone getting what they really want from this dire situation?
And isn’t the Babadook better off . . . once it's put in its place?
It’s far from perfect how it all ends up.
No doubt about it.
But where else are Amelia and the Babadook supposed to go?
Everybody’s gotta live somewhere.
And somebody’s gotta be the adult in the house.
