26. The Babadook

Friday November 28th On Demand. This is a film has been in more than 1 blog/article about underrated horror films of 2014. It even had a short run at the Music Box in Chicago. My girlfriend digs horror films (mainly the possession genre) and since it was over the Thanksgiving break we decided to give it whirl.

This Australian horror film was written and directed by former actor Jennifer Kent, her 1st feature film. The film is about a single mother and her troubled 6 year old boy. The boy's father died in a car accident on the way to the hospital the day of his birth. Both the mother and father were classical musicians and since her husband's death, she works at a convalescent home to pay the bills. So one night Samuel (Noah Wiseman) wants his mother Amelia (Essie Davis) to read him a bed time story, Samuel is that kid who doesn't quite fit in. So he picks out a book with no information other than the title. The book has got some spooky images and Samuel naturally gets spooked.

It's clearly a creepy book.

Sure enough, weird stuff begins to happen after Amelia reads the book to Samuel. She tries to get rid of the book on several occasions and the book keeps turning up. Meanwhile, Samuel is acting really strange. He has a seizure in the car, gets in trouble at school and brakes the nose of his cousin. All because of the Babadook. Amelia doesn't believe Samuel and takes him to a doctor to get sedatives so both her and Samuel can get some sleep. Amelia's life is falling apart. She's lost her job, been abandon by her sister and when she starts hallucinating some creepy sh*t, she unravels.  The Babadook goes in for the kill by getting Amelia to kill Samuel. Samuel sets a trap for Amelia in the basement and eventually comes to her senses and they make a last stand against the Babadook and win.

Things are apparently back to normal. Samuel is back at school and Amelia is back at her job. They go in the garden and dig up some worms. While in the basement they lay out the worms in front of a dark corner. Like a chained up dog, the Babadook takes it's meal (part of the book says that once the Babadook is let in, you cannot get rid of it, it's written in a real creepy iambic pentameter).

This was a pretty creepy film and it is worth watching. It builds up nicely and never slows down. Noah Wiseman is really creepy as Samuel (if he was British then he'd be off the charts creepy!) and Davis is a great as the overwhelmed and helpless mother. Normally I don't go for these types of films because they're too hit or miss. The Babadook is a hit. It may not be a home run but it's an extra base hit for sure. If you're into scary movies then watch the film, it's worth it.