bababa dook dook dook that’s the knock you will hear when the babadook comes to pay you a visit. Now I love a good horror (you could call me a connoisseur of horror movies) so when I first heard of this film it didn’t sound appealing, I mean with a name like the babadook as the villain it doesn’t sound threatening at all, but nonetheless I picked this film up for a tenner in HMV (a shop where they sell DVDs and other things) then today I sat down and watched this.
Now foreign horrors I enjoy (the ring and the grudge scared the fuck outta me) so this films hails from Australia, now the film follows a single mother (whose husband has died) and her son Samuel who has severe behaviour problems, because he believes in monsters, we see the mother suffering with insomnia because her son can’t sleep because of the monsters in his room. One night the son finds a book called Mr Babadook, so she reads the babadook and we see how scary and sinister this babadook is.
The son starts believing the book is real and has made weapons to defeat Mr babadook, which the mother disapproves and tells him off, cut to a few scenes later and we see them at a birthday party where Samuel’s cousin finds him in a treehouse and tells him to get out saying that he never deserved to have a dad, so Samuel pushes her out of the treehouse then claiming that it was the babadook that pushed her not him, this makes the sister hate him and the mum. The mum then goes to the doctor and says that she needs Samuel to get to sleep, so the doctor prescribes sleeping pills for Samuel, so after days of these sleeping pills everything is dandy, Samuel is sleeping so is the mum, but that doesn’t stop old Mr babadook oh no, he comes and possesses the mum, after that we see the mum get even more loopy than she ever was (she tries to strangle their dog) and many other things.
So a the film progresses we see the mum go through some very rough patches (hallucinations and angry outburst) then one night she really loses it and goes to attack Samuel, oh not before strangling the dog then breaking its neck, then she goes after Samuel and tries to kill him, Samuel petrified ties his mother up in the basement saying that he loves her and doesn’t want her to go (I was in tears at this bit) the mum then starts having a seizure and then rises up then vomits blood ending the babadooks possession.
So a few weeks have passed and Samuel is having a birthday party (he has never had a birthday on the day because his father died on the way to the birth) the mum tells us that she needed some time to get back to normal after her husbands death, then after Samuel shows his mum a magic trick they cuddle, do some gardening, and Samuel collecting a bowlful of worms, back in the house the mum goes in to the basement, Samuel asks her “will I ever see it again” to which the mum replies “of course when your older” she then goes into the basement and puts the bowl of worms down, suddenly the babadook appears and yells in the mums face, the mum then tells it that its okay, they are keeping the babadook in the basement pretty much.
And then the film ends there and what a film this was, I mean it didn’t just focus on the babadook it focused on the psychological effects that this monster can do as well as the misbehaving son affecting the mum as well, the whole film was scary my heart was pounding at some scenes in the film, I really felt unsettled during this and that’s what makes a good horror for me you need to be unsettled and feels the characters emotion, and that’s exactly what the babadook done it focused on the characters emotion rather than the actual monster, we don’t get to see the babadook but we can sense his presence when he arrives, and we feel the fear that these characters fear. Take the shining that film was psychologiacal as we felt what the characters felt especially the wife (the scene in the bathroom those screams you hear were real not acted real) I would give the babadook a solid 10/10 mainly for the acting and the unsettling side to this film, I definitely will not be sleeping soundly tonight, let me know what horror film scared you growing up or if you have seen this film then share your opinion I would love to hear it but until next time catch you later.