Freak Show : Certified Ace Movie Review : The Babadook (2014)

The Babadook, a nightmarish descent into madness

Genre: Horror
Country: Australia
Studio: Causeway Films
Release Date: May 22, 2014 (Australia)

Director: Jennifer Kent
Starring Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman

The Babadook was the top film in my list of the Best Horror Movies from 2014. The film, helmed by Australian director Jennifer Kent in her debut, stars Essie Davis as Amelia, a widowed orderly who tries to raise her son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman) all by herself after the death of her husband. She tries desperately to manage taking care of her son alone, while trying to cope with grief at the same time.
The film wasn't received very well back in Australia when it was originally released. It didn't even made any impact on the country's box-office.
Yet after being released internationally, the film went viral, receiving critical acclaim from critics around the globe. And ultimately went on to become the year's most talked about horror film.
A revelation of 2014.

After reading all the reviews about the film, I became curious about it. So I decided to see it for myself.
Unfortunately, I missed the movie's limited release here in the Philippines. So I had to watch it at home on the small screen.
I thought this would affect the overall movie experience of watching it but I was proven wrong.

So did the movie gave me what I was promised? Did it meet my expectations from all the reviews I've read about it?
Let's have a breakdown of the movie and have a closer look.

Story

The film tells the story of Amelia (Essie Davis) a widowed mother of a hyper-active kid named Samuel (Noah Wiseman). She's trying to raise her son alone while she tries to recover from the loss of her husband in an accident.

She is having difficulties managing Samuel. He is showing signs of erratic behavior, especially when he is with other kids, causing him to be taken out of school and be alienated by his friends and neighbors. He also keeps on complaining about a 'monster' that he builds weapons to fight with.
Amelia is also having difficulties sleeping, making things harder for her.
One night, he found a pop-up story book that mysteriously showed up in their shelf. Amelia starts reading the book to him, much to their horror as the story in the book is way too disturbing, causing him to cry. The pop-up book tells a story about a man named Mr. Babadook, a creature wearing a dark long coat and a hat, with knives for his fingers. In the story, he visits a boy who thought that he was a friendly man, but eventually torments him.

Due to the disturbing nature of the book, Amelia ended up throwing it away. At one point, she tears the book apart, only for it to return to their doorstep, with new pop-up images featuring a mother driven to madness by the creature, and ended up killing her son (which mirrors her situation right now).
Then, they start seeing an apparition of a man in a dark long coat showing around their house. As the apparitions grew more frightening, Amelia isn't sure anymore of what is really true and what is not as she starts to question her sanity.

Horror movies featuring the relationship of mothers with their child are already very common. One good example would be Andrés Muschiett's creepy horror Mama (2013). So The Babadook's premise is not very new anymore. Yet it shines above the rest because it highlighted the deteriorating releationship of Amelia with her son, as she falls down to insanity. This gives the movie a very disturbing atmosphere, with the feeling that she could kill her own son any minute.
This makes the story unique above the rest.

Direction

First time feature director Jennifer Kent was a revelation in this film.
She was able to tell the story in a way where all of us watching would really root for Amelia and her son, empathyzing with her every time Samuel does something bad, feels her grief and exhaustion, and worries for her sanity. And this is one main components of an effective horror movie that most filmmakers fail at doing. Audiences should feel sympathy for the characters in the story. This is done by the mans of a backstory, an event that happened to them before, or buliding up the character through their dialogues. Viewers should care for these characters, so that once they are already in a dangerous situation, we would really feel scared for them. In this case, she had build-up Amelia through her backstory as a widowed single parent. With the death of her husband, plus the pressure of being a single mother who takes care of a hyper-active child made us care for her character.
Director Jennifer Kent was also successful in making the film way more terrifying as she didn't followed the usual horror movie tradition of immediately throwing cheap scares. Films relying to these tactics usually turn out bad, just like the movie Annabelle, helmed by John Leonetti. The film is so over-crowded with cheap jump scares, but it doesn't really elicit any feeling of terror that lasts until one leaves the theater.
Kent filled the movie with a sense of uneasiness. With Amelia starting to question her sanity, it slowly builds up the dread and terror. Then, in the climactic point of the film, she throws in the most terrifying scene of the year, with the Babadook finally showing its form to Amelia. This scene made me throw away my monobloc chair because of so much terror and surprise. I had to pause the movie so that I could breathe for a while.
Another thing that made the creature in the film more terrifying is that Director Kent never really revealed the full form of the monster. The same technique that Steven Spielberg used in his cult classic film Jaws (1975).

The creature's look was described in the pop-up storybook, giving the audience use their imagination come up with how it looks like, which makes it more scarier. Then, whenever Amelia will see apparitions of the creature, it is mostly hidden in the dark. There would be times where only it's silhoutte is visible. There is a time where it showed it's face but not it's full body. Mostly it's covered or obscured by lighting. The scariest part was when we heard the Babadook's voice on a phone call, saying it's name with a very deep, hoarse sound.
This gave the creature a more mysterious and a more menacing image to us.

Acting

Essie Davis gives a performance like no other here as Amelia. She plays her character with passion. We can really feel her grief due to the death of her husband. We feel her exhaustion, her stress of taking care of her hyper-active son. And we fear for her as she starts to descend into madness.
She also looked very fragile, making her the best actress to play the role.

On the other hand, Noah Wiseman is a good counterpart to her as Samuel. He can melt anyone's heart with his childish rants. You fear for his life as his mother starts to turn against him.

Director Kent and the producers picked the right choices for the characters in the film.
He is a really good actor despite his age (they didn't have any script reading because of this, instead Director Kent told a kiddie version of the movie to him so that he would understand the story).

Technical Aspects

The story mostly happens within the confines of their house. And one thing that I noticed is that there are a lot of dark corners in the house most of the time. There are scenes wherein it is daytime yet half of the room is pitch black. This gives the scene a more unsettling feeling for the creature might appear anywhere at any moment. These dark corners are also being used to obscure the Babadook's appearance every time it shows up.
Another thing that I must commend is their use of stop-motion animation for the creature effects. This gave the film a vintage/ old school touch. It also made the creature way more terrifying because it looked so eerie with it's movements.

Overall

This film definitely scared the hell out of me. I'never felt such sheer terror since Insidious (2011). I thought the overall movie experience of watching the movie would change becasue I'm not seeing it on the big screen but it didn't. It was as scary as hell.
Featuring bravura performances from it's stars Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman, masterful direction from Jennifer Kent, and an undeniably terrifying monster (effectively brought into life with stop-motion), The Babadook is sure to be the most unforgettable horror film of 2014.