Spooked by the Babadook

Rating: 8/10 (27 March 2017)

SPOILER ALERTS!
The psychological horror that is The Babadook captivates the audience with the all too terrifying reality of single-parenthood after losing your spouse. Before the tragic event of losing her husband on the way to the hospital to give birth to their son, Amelia wrote children's books. This is a silent nod of her being the author of The Babadook. Whether she wrote this before or after cannot be confirmed, but it is probable she, in a fit of depression, grief, or rage, wrote the second version that had her killing the dog, her son, and herself. The Babadook is an allegory of her mental illness. Jenifer Kent did a wonderful job representing the horrors of fighting the monsters in our heads, instead of the typical monster movies of fighting the ones under our beds. Mental illness is not always present or a constant problem. It lurks, like the Babadook, in the shadows of your mind (the house), and each person with a mental illness has their own distinct form of one (the different monsters' children "see" under the bed). I think the ending, of her feeding the Babadook with worms, is a metaphor of her acknowledging her depression. You normally hear people say, "I don't want to open that can of worms," when referring to something they don't want to discuss. In this case, Amelia has finally recognized she has a mental illness and is trying to get a hold of it. Dealing with mental illness is a constant battle, which is why one can never truly get rid of the Babadook.