Different, but good?

Rating: 7/10 (6 December 2014)

I so badly wanted to love this film when I saw the trailer because I'm sick and tired of the stereotypical 'jump-scare' formula that so, so many horror films rely on these days, and the trailer promised something different. Although I felt that this film broke away successfully, it isn't without faults. Where it so thankfully steers clear of jump scare cliché's, it fails to avoid many others such as 'unusual boy that nobody understands', 'wimpy, flaky woman who snaps' and the overused 'insects to signify mental breakdown'. It's a little exhausting to see these repeated. A stereotype that the film uses successfully, however, (possibly the best use of this I've seen in cinema so far) is the children's-story element. The Babadook book itself has easily the most terrifying illustrations I've seen, and it works so, so well to create unease. The illustrations are perfect, and I wish the drawings were used more frequently to express fear, because once they were turned into CG creations the horror was gone. ...What a surprise. Have we not learnt from this yet?
'Monsters' are always best left to the imagination- and that's where the movie failed, I feel, by showing the Babadook as an entity. To remain a figment of the viewers imagination with nothing to fuel your conjuring's but the drawings in the book, I know the movie would've been a lot more terrifying. But once we see the Babadook, a huge slice of the terror is gone.
Aside from that; the cinematography was beautiful; the palette of heavy blue was effective and the camera angles made the mundane day-to-day activities much more bearable. The child actor held his own; none of the acting felt forced or ridiculous, even if the constant 'mummy! mummy!' got a little frustrating (we get it, it builds tension, but i'm clawing at my ears here). Overall, not as scary as I'd hoped, but it took horror into a much more positive direction. It was a great insight into the issues of single-parenthood and the necessity of support. How problems such as heartache don't just 'go away', they stay with you, buried deep down (in the basement, as it were), but can be controlled with love and help and understanding.
The film wasn't a shallow horror story, it voices deeper meaning and insight- which you don't see much of nowadays.
(On a side note- where did that kid even GET that dove? Seriously. What.)