Movie Review - The Babadook: An unsettling chiller with brains and heart

It's almost Halloween, and most people will be looking for a spooky horror to give them thrills and chills; so it's the right time to unleash Australian-made Horror 'The Babadook' at cinemas.  Ostensibly it's the tale of a grieving woman, struggling to cope with her troubled 6 year-old son, who are both terrorised by a supernatural presence.  But this film actually touches on subjects deeper and fears more primal than shadow figures, darkness and things that go bump in the night.

Because of this, if you're after a horror that will make you jump, scream then laugh like you're in a fairground attraction then you will find this slow paced.  This is a film that takes time to draw you in to the lives of Amelia (Essie Davis), who has never fully recovered from the loss of her husband in an horrific accident, and as a result struggles to bond with her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman).  These two central performances are quite fantastic: Davis conveys melancholy, despair, exasperation, and mania so effectively that there are times your heart is breaking for her, only to have her terrify you slightly in another scene.  Henshall gives one of the best performances I've seen from a child actor in any film - his is a genuine one that is believeable and sympathetic, even when the character is most troubling his mother.  Never does the film have him be 'cute' or precocious - as a result his fear and concern when he and his mother are threatened are believable.

"If it's in a word, or in a look, you can‘t get rid of The Babadook..." Children‘s books have never been as scary!

Given the subject matter so far you'd be forgiven for thinking I'm describing your typical depressing drama, but this film establishes such a bleak and unsettling tone even before the supernatural begins to menace Amelia and Samuel.  Almost entirely shot in very muted colours, the fact that many characters are dressed in black (even at a child's party) contribute to a funereal atmosphere.  It also makes their house feel increasingly oppressive and inescapable towards the final act of the film as the titular spook really makes its presence known.

Although many horror directors work to the maxim 'show, don‘t tell', Mister Babadook is mostly kept in shadows and darkness - and works all the better for it.  The film elicits a tremendous sense of fear in quite primal ways, having the monster move in, and seemingly made of, silhouttes and the dark.  Couple this with minimal but suitably creepy sound design, and there are a number of scenes that, if you were ever afraid of the dark corners of your bedroom as a child, should give you chills.  These scenes certainly brought me out in something of a cold sweat!  This is further reinforced through the acting - there are times we only see the characters reacting to the spook, and their horrified, terror-filled expressions completely sell how frightening Mister Babadook is. 

This film makes great use of those childhood fears we've all had - monsters under beds, or in closets, or in the shadows.  What do you mean, some grown ups still do too?

But a surprising amount of the terror in this film comes not just from the supernatural, but from the behaviour of the lead characters.  Initially the film adopts the perspective of Amelia, making the peculiar episodes and monster fixation of her son seem as scary as they are unmanagable.  But this shifts the other way, and we see the way that she is unable to deal with the haunting from Samuel's perspective, and her behaviour becomes a source of terror.

In this respect the supernatural aspects of the film might not, in someways, be satisfying for viewers who want a literal interpretation of the events.  There is a strong subtext about mental health, and for me this only heightened the terror experienced by one of the characters, as well as giving the film a surprisingly heart-wrenching aspect.

A multi-layered script, excellent direction, impressive cinematography and two remarkable performances are the core to this fantastic horror film.  Without relying on gore, cheap shocks or jump scares, this film creates an unsettling and downbeat atmosphere that feeds in to a chilling and frightening final act.  It mixes the supernatural with very real fears that many people experience everyday.  It may well haunt your thoughts for sometime after watching it; it certainly has mine.