A flawed but scary modern horror film

Rating: 6/10 (11 April 2016)

The Babadook is a 2014 horror film directed by Jennifer Kent. (It's actually the feature length debut for Kent) The Babadook tells the story of Amelia, (played by Essie Davis.) a single mother struggling to raise her constantly disobeying child, Samuel. (played by Noah Wiseman.) One day when Amelia is putting Samuel to sleep, he finds a mysterious book on the book shelf titled 'The Babadook,' and asks his mother to read to him as a bed time story. The book ends up being utterly terrifying, resulting in Amelia getting rid of it. But strange things begin to happen and Amelia slowly becomes paranoid that something is after her and Samuel.
The Babadook is the film that gets a lot of stuff right, and a lot of stuff wrong. But first lets focus on the positive. Probably the best thing I can say about The Babadook is that it really, really tries to impress and frighten its audience. In a day when horror movies are all generic copies of each-other with predictable and cheap scares, it's a nice treat to see one that actually takes its time setting up a mood and atmosphere, and one that never relies on overused jump-scares to try and frighten the audience. But not only does the film actually try to be original and creative with its scares. It is actually scary. The Babadook is one of the only films I can think off that actually caused me to lose sleep over how scared I was by it. The scenes involving the book are executed perfectly, and I would be amazed if anyone wasn't completely terrified of them. Another positive is that all the actors do really solid jobs in their roles, especially Esse Davis. (Though the kid is incredibly annoying throughout the first half of the film.)
But I think it's time we started talking about where the film messes up. For one the film is a little obvious and heavy-handed with its symbolism and message. I'm not against a horror film having either of these things, in fact I'm completely for it. But a little subtlety would be nice. If you somehow haven't heard what the film is metaphor I won't spoil it, but let's just say there's no way you're gonna miss it. Another much larger problem is the third act, it is just way, way, way too overblown. They spend the first hour with some great set-up, and than they completely blow it in the last half-hour. They shove way to much in the later part of the film and you end up with a lot of unnecessarily parts, and eventually it just feels like the film is trying to artificially stretch its length to 90 mins. I really think they could have had a much better film if they just cut 15-20 mins off it. Another major problem I have with the film is the ending, it really ham-fisted and it seems like it console tell goes against the whole idea of the film.
In short The Babadook has some really good stuff, and some not so good stuff. But I would still definitely recommend it. Even though it has its problems because it's so nice to see a modern horror film, actually try to be good and original, and even better to see one that's legitimately scary.
6.4/10