What the Hellish Babadook Has to Say About Childhood Grief ( Warning- Spoilers ahead )

[Jefferson23]

The best horror film of 2014 understands that kids, especially very young ones, deal with loss much differently than adults do.

Lenika Cruz Dec 10 2014, 7:31 AM ET


Spoilers ahead.

"If it's in a word, or it's in a look, you can't get rid of the Babadook."

So begins a mysterious children's pop-up book filled with eerie white charcoal drawings of an overcoated, Slenderman-like figure. The book and the spooky creature inside are ostensibly the big marketing hooks for the independent Australian psychohorror-meets-monster-story The Babadook, which debuted at Sundance earlier this year, months before a quiet Nov. 28 release in select U.S. theaters and VOD.

Promotional materials for horror films often try to tell audiences what kind of scary movie to expect. Is it a creepy doll movie? A haunted object movie? Freaky body horror? Possession movie? Another Paranormal Activity sequel? And so The Babadook got billed according to its most salient horror element: the monster.

Those lucky enough to have already seen the movie, which the director of The Exorcist called the most terrifying film he'd ever seen, quickly realized it wasn't quite about the titular boogeyman itself, nor was it about his evil book-vessel that haunts Amelia and her son Sam, whose father was killed in a car crash while driving his pregnant wife to the hospital to deliver him. Many reviews noted how the film gave form and voice to the unspoken horrors and pains of parenting, specifically motherhood, through the metaphor of an insanity-inducing demon.

First-time feature director Jennifer Kent admitted as much to Rolling Stone, saying "It really was connecting to that woman and her journey towards staring something nightmarish in the face. As the film progresses, you start to realize: Oh my God, the kid was right—and that's where the fear is for me."

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/12/what-the-hellish-babadook-has-to-say-about-childhood-grief/383528/

[hack89]

1. What a great movie - scared the heck out of me. nt

[Jefferson23]

2. You're the first to respond...frightening as all get out..done in a smart way.

I'm not a fan, generally speaking, of scary films...but this one is exceptionally well done, I thought.