leave it on the shelf

Rating: 5/10 (9 June 2015)

Babadook is never a 1-star movie so ignore anyone suggesting it is, but it certainly isn't anything like as accomplished or disturbing as I thought it would be from the amount of hype it's generated. Stylishly directed in places yes, but it has an overall feel of taking place inside some kind of atmosphere-less vacuum that never quite engages. Add to that a very uninspired script, overly melodramatic acting (especially from the mother), a kid who does well for a child actor but never really convinces, and a main plot device which is so clumsily handled it seems unintentionally funny in places, and you have a movie that comes across more like a stillborn show-piece than any kind of gripping, scary cinema. The trailer suggested a potential classic, but the result while not exactly a full blown disaster is nowhere near.
If you want a vastly more creepy movie carried by a young child in the lead role check out Bob Balaban's brilliantly eerie, surreal portrait of suburbia gone wrong 'Parents'.