Horror-tober 6: The Babadook

Although one from a more recent past than others I often feature on Throwback Thursday, I felt like I needed a revisit.

A single mother (Amelia) struggles with disciplining her unruly 6-year old boy (Sam). He makes weapons to fight "monsters," which gets him in trouble at school. To add to the trouble, she finds it impossible to love him because she lost her husband in a car accident when he was driving her to the hospital to give birth. As her son's 7th birthday rolls around he discovers a strange pop-up book in his room. Shortly after, they are haunted by the creature in the book, the Babadook.

It is rare to find a movie that truly is terrifying, and not just in a scary monster sort of way. It took a second watch for me to really see that it wasn't all about the creature. The other "monster" or "demon" in this film is that of the pain of loss and the inability to "move on". Everyone copes differently with loss and when something so tragic happens, it is hard to move on and not play the blame game. In this case, Amelia finds it difficult to love her son, in a way blaming him for the loss of her husband. This movie is much a drama as it is a horror. Believing the Babadook to be a figment of Sam's imagination she resorts to medicating him to try to control his outbursts. However, the Babadook plays on her emotions and when she finally lets him "in", it is Sam that has to save his mom from the clutches of the Babadook. The visuals were stunning and the acting, even from the young Sam, was so good. The Babdook is truly a unique and well done film. There are still questions when you get to the end and some of the plot doesn't quite make sense. But it is an all around great horror movie that also plays on deeper emotions and human psyche.