Six years ago, Amelia lost her husband to a car accident while giving birth to their son, Samuel. Although some time has passed since the tragedy, Amelia struggles mightily to find the strength necessary to love her son, a young boy with behavioral issues whose wild fantasies involve a monster coming to kill them both. When a mysterious book called "The Babadook" shows up at their house, Samuel's antics reach another level, with hallucinations that spiral out of control which leads Amelia to seek outside medical help. However, when Amelia herself begins to feel a sinister force around her, she slowly begins to realize that Samuel's fears of The Babadook may be very real. Jennifer Kent's The Babadook is a film that puts its characters first, spending the time necessary to craft a strong character-driven story about guilt, loss, and the fight nearly everyone faces with their own personal demons. For any film, not just a horror film, The Babadook is impressive in its ability to capture the effect tragedy can have on its characters, showing Amelia as a woman who struggles to even embrace her maternal instincts. Amelia subtlety resents her son, almost inadvertently blaming him for the death of her husband. This attention to character and story is what makes The Babadook special, only amplifying the horror and suspense of the film as things begin to escalate. Like another great horror film to come out this year, The Canal, Kent's The Babadook plays with the viewers perceptions of its main protagonist, making it unclear for awhile whether this horror story is a reality or simply a figment of a warped mind's imagination. While I would say The Babadook's ending is a bit of a let down, Jennifer Kent proves herself as a horror filmmaker to watch, creating a strong horror thriller based around a rather generic concept.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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