My Thoughts on The Babadook

My plot summary of the movie does involve spoilers, so if you haven't seen the movie, but want to, click away.

So I finally got around to watching 2014's The Babadook; an Australian psychological horror directed by Jennifer Kent. Well, it's kind of a psychological horror. It is definitely psychological, but the Babadook is very much a real monster in this universe. But he serves as a rather frightening metaphor for grief.

The movie follows a widow named Amelia, who is a single mom to her six-year-old son, Samuel. Her husband was killed in a car accident while they were on the way to the hospital to give birth to Samuel. This is something she still hasn't quite moved past, as one can imagine. She still performs her motherly duties towards Samuel, but you can sense she is merely going through the motions. One night, Samuel picks out a bedtime story--a mysterious pop-up book called Mr. Babadook.

The book is frightening to Samuel, and his behavior begins to take a turn for the worst. He is obsessed with the Babadook, appears to be hallucinating, and even has a stress seizure from the terror. Because the book causes Samuel so much distress, Amelia rips up all the pages and throws it out. But the book returns--not only with the pages taped back, but with new and even more terrifying passages.

Amelia, like her son, also begins slowly descending into madness. She becomes sleep deprived and verbally abusive towards Samuel. He tries to rouse her from sleep to get him something to eat, to which she angrily responds: "If you're so hungry, why don't you go eat s***?!" Amelia realizes that she too, is terrified of the Babadook. She starts seeing him everywhere just as her son did. And while Samuel has the innocence to keep the Babadook from controlling him--Amelia ends up becoming possessed by the monster.

A wild night ensues (reminiscent of Jack's rampage from The Shining, I'll say that much) but seeing a hallucination of her deceased husband, forces her to finally accept his passing, and she comes to her senses and tells the Babadook to leave.

It takes all of her willpower, but the Babadook does retreat into their basement, where they keep it as somewhat of a strange, supernatural pet. It still acts up, but Amelia has control over it--showing that while she may never entirely get rid of her grief, she no longer lets it consume her. The ending implies a much happier future for both Samuel and Amelia, and their relationship is now stronger than ever.

While this isn't the scariest or even most unsettling piece of psychological horror media I've consumed by a long shot, I did still enjoy it for what it was: A thriller that acts as an allegory for human emotions we will all experience. At the beginning of the film, I remember thinking "Wow this movie is great birth control" as I thought Samuel was annoying, creepy, and defiant. But when Amelia begins to spiral, I started to feel sick over how unfairly he was being treated by the world and his own mother. He was just a kid trying to deal with a very scary and mature situation.

A smaller thing I liked, was the unique art style in the children's book. "Ominous children's book" is definitely a played out trope in horror, but I can let it slide in the case of this movie. The art in the book definitely had a lot of thought put into it. It certainly wasn't something thrown together last minute as a lazy way of introducing the antagonist. The illustrations are scary, stylized, and unique. They teeter on whimsical and horrific.

I can see a lot of horror fans being disappointed by the ending. While yes, it wasn't a typical horror ending, I think it communicated the point of the film the best it could. The point being that grief never goes away, and it can eat you alive if you let it. But you need to remember that you are the one in control of your grief, even though it feels like it has control on you. And it is possible to still live a happy life in the aftermath of devastation, if you don't let it rule over you. A rather hopeful message, which isn't common in horror. But I think it's something we all need to hear.

Not a perfect film by any means, but it is still enjoyable if you have 90 minutes to kill and want to have something spooky for the Halloween season.