The greatest horror films — the ones that stand the test of
time — continue to resonate with audiences not just for the theme park thrills
they provide, but because they find a way to tap into our deepest, most primal
fears. They can choose to make those fears metaphorical or terrifyingly
literal, but that ability to get under our skin is the reason horror has proven
to be such a potent and enduring genre. The debut feature from Australian
writer-director Jennifer Kent, “The Babadook” is just the latest horror film to
strike a nerve with audiences. A frightening exploration of the most sinister
aspects of motherhood, mental illness, and grief, the film shapes these ideas
into a demented bedtime story that’s one of the most chilling films I’ve seen
in ages.
The film centers on Amelia (Essie Davis), a widowed mother,
and her 6-year-old son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman). Sam’s father died in a car accident
while driving Amelia to the hospital to give birth, and over the years Amelia
has — perhaps understandably — grown to associate Sam’s presence with the loss
of her beloved husband. She’s still so traumatized that she refuses to let Sam
celebrate his birthday on the proper day. A troubled boy with an overactive
imagination and severe behavioral problems, Sam has developed a disturbing
fascination with building homemade weapons to combat the monsters he fears lurk
under his bed. Amelia loves her son, but the constant amount of care Sam
requires leaves her mentally and physically exhausted. Isolated inside their
house, these neuroses fester until Amelia’s maternal instincts start to curdle
into something else entirely.
Their home is already a fairly toxic environment, but then
one day, a children’s pop-up book, that Amelia doesn’t remember ever seeing
before, appears on Sam’s bookshelf. A ghoulish little story about a sinister
figure named Mister Babadook, the book only makes Sam more fearful. A malevolent
being with a top hat and Nosferatu-esque talons — somewhere between Freddy
Krueger and Dr. Caligari — the Babadook feels vaguely familiar, as though he’s
somehow always existed in your subconscious nightmares. Both mother and son
find themselves haunted by the creature; he creeps into their minds and seems
to prowl the dark recesses of their home. And the book’s pages promise that
“you can’t get rid of the Babadook.”
Kent creates a palpable feeling of the anxiety and stress
Amelia is under. At one point, Sam’s pleading disrupts his mother’s slumber
before she’s barely been able to shut her eyes; it’s an especially effective
illustration of the unrelenting nature of parenthood. When you add in the
humiliation she feels under the judgmental eyes of her sister and other
mothers, it’s somewhat understandable when she imagines giving in to her
darkest repressed impulses.
Crucial to the film’s effectiveness is Davis’s increasingly
unhinged — though consistently sympathetic — performance. She creates a
compelling portrait of parental indifference (or worse). If the horror genre
got the respect it deserved, her work would be up for awards season
consideration. As it is, it’s one of the finest performances of the year, and
she’s equally matched by the young Wiseman’s deranged presence.
Kent’s elegantly psychological approach avoids the silly jump
scares that have become a crutch many modern horror films lean on far too much.
The slowly building dread and tension make “The Babadook” one of the strongest
debut features I’ve seen. The production design is impeccable, particularly for
such a low-budget film, capturing the claustrophobic mindset of the characters,
and the inventive, mostly practical effects are in keeping with the film’s
handmade aesthetic. It’s viewed through the eyes of Radek Ladczuk’s beautifully
cold, monochromatic cinematography — all grayish-blue tones, creating echoes of
the Babadook’s Expressionist influences.
If Mister Babadook is too obviously a metaphor — the film
never truly succeeds in making the malevolent boogeyman feel like a real,
external presence — that doesn’t make this film any less frightening. If
anything, the emotional depth of that metaphor makes the film’s ideas even
scarier. That he’s a manifestation of a broken psyche leaves open an even more
unnerving and horrifying a conclusion: The demons that lurk within us are more
terrifying and dangerous than any ghost or ghoul.
Click here for showtimes in Rochester theaters for “The Babadook”
This article appears in Jan 14-20, 2015.
