A few entertaining parts but quite a failure in the end.

Rating: 3/10 (15 August 2015)

First mistake a movie should avoid is making the audience hate the protagonists.
The kid behaves like a whiny little brat and the mother is unable to exert any discipline or have him seen by a therapist despite him building a WORKING DARTH SHOOTING CROSSBOW in primary school. Everybody, including her own sister, hates them, rightly so.
Please note that the WORKING CROSSBOW never gets disposed of by the mother but is inexplicably left in the hands of the child.
Weird stuff starts happening almost immediately, killing any building of suspense.
Character development is quite superficial. What she is doing in her life is merely hinted at, as is her relationship with the old woman. Only thing we know is that the dad died in a car crash. How this is functional to the story, I have no idea.
Also why is the babadook book in that specific house? What are its origins? Why is it haunting this family? How exactly do they defeat him? What were is intentions and why? The movie does not bother to elaborate over ANY of this crucial points.
And some OLD tricks are so predictable. Flickering lights and the old-as-the world trick of destroying the cursed item only to find it intact back in place.