The Babadook Review: Blending Psychological Drama With Nightmare Fuel

The Babadook is a wonderful mix of drama, suspense, and horror all wrapped up in an immensely bleak and depressing atmosphere. And unlike most horror titles, this delightful film's big highlight isn't within its "monster" and "kills", but actually with its amazing lead performances. Celebrating the acting talents of a horror movie is kind of an uncommon thing considering the history surrounding this genre's repeated critical reception. But in the case of The Babadook, we're given a strong female lead performance by Essie Davis who plays a mother (Amelia) trying to cope with her husband's tragic death while raising her son alone. Her son Samuel is played exceptionally well by Noah Wiseman who may have just delivered one of the most captivating child performances in a horror film following iconic titles like The Exorcist, The Sixth Sense, or The Omen. 

Witnessing this heavily constricting relationship between mother and child sits at the core of The Babadook's "hook factor" beyond just the expected supernatural horror elements that follows through. There are many moments where the film would decide to completely stop everything just to hold a scene revolving around Amelia struggling to either discipline or protect her son. The role is then reversed as we see Samuel in other instances "protecting" his mother in the way that he sees fit from a child's imaginative perspective. The drama elements presented during these various interactions are some of the strongest that I've ever seen of any film making me forgot that something creepy was supposed to happen eventually. 

We're also given these powerful yet nuanced moments where Amelia is shown missing her husband and thinking on the idea of having company around that isn't her son. It is during these particular scenes where the film boldly displays that certain things are lacking in her life and that the primal needs of a human being can slowly break down even the strongest of people. When looking at this from a certain perspective, if you completely remove the creature itself, you'll still be left with a heartbreaking drama about a mother slowly decomposing as she tries to take care of her delusional son. This is what makes The Babadook specifically stand out in such a heavily crowded market of supernatural horror cinema. Not many titles can literally take away its shock value villain and still leave the audience with a highly engaging dramatic experience worth watching. 

That's another thing that the film does very well which is play on the simple but tragic idea of the son having psychological problems dealing with his father's death to be the reasonings for everything that's happening around him. This lends to some very tensed scenes of Samuel breaking out in an emotional spasm yelling at visually nothing onscreen yet looking absolutely terrified for his life. I've also realized the sense of emptiness that the majority of the scenes portray being accompanied by the lack of a soundtrack. Initially, I thought that this might've been an artistic choice to enhance the overall suspenseful atmosphere, but as things gradually went on, I started to see this directional approach as being something far deeper in narrative. 

Perhaps the emptiness also emphasizes on the overwhelmingly oppressive lonesomeness of the lead characters. That suffocating hopelessness and lifeless energy that sucks up Amelia's world is perhaps told through the film's cleverly minimalistic audio component. When accompanied by a notably dark and gloomy color palette overall (especially seen in the central house setting), you can very well get the sense of our characters being cornered at every turn by the unavoidable weight of their sorrows. I remember when the film finally came to a close and the credits began rolling in, I almost had this breath of relief as if I'd just exited a pressure tank after an hour of being trapped. That's a huge testament to the exceptionally effective cinematic language that this film is able to reach out to the audience with. 

Once things take a turn towards the actual horror elements of the story, that's when I feel we enter into the more weaker section of The Babadook. Honestly, if it wasn't for the strong emotional build up regarding the mother and son relationship, the actual "terror" that this monster is suppose to let out would've came across as being pretty boring to say the least. The titular monster comes off as a really good children's nightmare brought to life, but from the perspective of an adult watching, I find it to be more mysterious than frightening. I will say however that I do find the design of the creature to be genuinely creepy and unique in its posture and mannerisms. It almost reminds of the original 1922 Nosferatu film's vampire villain in the way that it eerily positions its arms and hands as it glides across which I personally enjoyed from a creature design perspective. 

It's not something that we commonly see with today's horror villains giving it a more classic aesthetic to its overall appearance. In terms of the creative ways in which they reveal the monster throughout the film, I do admire the general method taken here playing on the classic "the less you see, the scarier" sensibility. There's a couple of shots with the entity lurking off in the background or being cleverly guised as an object on the wall that definitely caught my eye. However, I can't honestly say that the pay off at the end was entirely worth the anticipation leading in. The presentation of the actual book detailing the lore where our monster supposedly stems from was handled really well as some of the imagery shown was legitimately unnerving layering a heavy coat of eeriness to the Babadook. 

Unfortunately, when the filmmakers decide to show it off a little bit too much in certain scenes, the scare factor gets slightly removed to a degree. One of the scenes that I'm referring to is where we see Amelia in bed fearfully watching the Babadook creep into her room, climb up the ceiling, and leap towards her. Sounds absolutely creepy in concept? Most definitely. But despite some of those creepy aspects being beautifully displayed like the use of shadows and sound design, the overall execution still left much to be desired upon the revealing of its face. This is one of those situations where I find myself celebrating the choices that a filmmaker makes while simultaneously questioning why they decided to green light particular scenes that goes against said choices. 

This a horror villain that is downright nightmare fuel in its nuances, so to see a couple scenes where they decide to be more upfront and "in your face" with it is a little disappointing. That being said, leaning back to the positive side of the spectrum again, there's a whole possession aspect of the story that I thought was handled rather well. As things begin to ramp up, much like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, we're essentially witnessing the spiraling mental decline of our lead and it's pretty chilling at times. Some of these segments, primarily the TV watching scenes, are utterly skin crawling. 

One involves Amelia watching news footage of a child murder crime scene (a disturbing subtle connection to her current mental state) and notices her face smiling out of the house's window being shown onscreen. There's also the scene where the Babdaook appears in certain shots of silent horror films which admittedly felt like a fever dream nightmare playing out. I've always found classic silent pictures to be especially terrifying due to the imagery alone being much more disturbing than the majority of horror cinema spanning the last 3 decades. So to utilize specifically chosen imagery from those films like 1908's The Haunted House with insertions of "Mr. Babadook" really helped elevate that dark, strategically cerebral assault component to the story. 

I also love the fact that a lot of this was brilliantly foreshadowed by the center piece book such as Amelia completely losing it and chasing down her own child after killing the dog. However, it's also in this finale where the film unintentionally becomes laughable at times for me. I won't go into it too much detail, but I ended up flashing back to Home Alone during a certain chase sequence which really didn't fit the dark and oppressive tone that the film was going with overall. The ending itself where we get the final confrontation with the Babadook is another scene that felt a little off to me (albeit admirably bold).

It's a beautifully directed and truly bizarre moment as the perspective shifts to the Babadook's perspective rising in front of Amelia then scurrying to the basement after she basically yells at it. It definitely caught me off guard especially given that we never actually see what Amelia is looking at during this entire sequence making it all the more impactful. The final scene will more than likely result in plenty of head scratching and heavy analyzation as I feel the most intriguing part of the story is the idea of the creature either being an actual physical entity or a psychological construct of sheer depression (or both?). This is one of my favorite things about this film being the fact that it leaves you with something to ponder about while also being creeped out as opposed to just keeping things straight forward as a typical haunted house spectacle.

Overall, The Babadook is an extraordinary psychological drama with a few notably creepy visuals, but at the same time, I'd also categorize it as a slightly below average horror in some respects. I feel that your enjoyment will primarily lean on whichever aspect of the film really appeals to you the most which I find to be one of the most fascinating things about it. If you're deeply immersed in the emotional family conflict component, then I think the movie will offer a lot to celebrate. If you're coming in exclusively for the supernatural horror scares then I think you might it to be slightly underwhelming. Either way, The Babadook is an absolute treasure of a film with incredible performances and a prime example of how effective horror cinema can be in getting into the minds of the viewers though clever use of imagery and storytelling.

Rating: 8/10