Innovative and smart which would entail you to watch it again but you would hesitate as it's dauntingly creepy

Rating: 8/10 (15 January 2015)

The Babadook is 2014's best horror film without any doubt. In recent years we got really good films like The Conjuring and Oculus in the worn-out genre of horror. The Babadook sits on top of both. But take a note that this not your typical horror movie filled with jump-scares alongside sudden loud noises to scare you. You need to watch the movie closely and try to understand what is the idea underlying the creepy monster called 'The Babadook'.
The film opens with a dream sequence of a woman Amelia (Essie Davis). We learn that the dream was of the car accident in which her husband died 7 years ago. She was in labor and her husband was taking her to the hospital when the whole incident happened. Ever since, Amelia has raised her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) alone. Amelia who is still plagued with the depression and hassles of daily life rarely sleeps. Adding to it, Samuel stars displaying erratic behavior of being scared of an imaginary monster making Amelia comfort him every night by reading storybooks. Things get worse when one night they go through a strange book named 'The Babadook' which describes a weirdly-scary monster with same name. It scares the hell out of Samuel and seems to have a bad effect on Amelia too. Samuel starts talking to others about The Babadook making people think weird of him. Amelia and son start getting more isolated from the society and feel scary things at night. We may have seen the mom and child against the ghost many times but the story here is intelligent and very well scripted. The ending was a bewildering, making you rethink whether you caught hold of the things perfectly.
The story builds up slowly whether you like it or not, but it is the essence of a good suspenseful horror. It nicely imprints characters of Amelia and Samuel in our minds and their mother-son relationship. Since her husband died on the same day Samuel was born, deep within her she feels her son was responsible for all the troubles they are going through even if on the top she lovingly takes care of him. At the same time the son loves her a lot more and has the usually "dont worry mom, I am there to protect you" feeling. But he also soon starts to understand what lies buried deep within his mom's feelings. Even if The Babadook is portrayed as a horror element, it has a metaphorical view point of grief and despair in our life which soon starts to take our bright hopeful side. Actually, I feel the movie was made to metaphorically relate to our daily lives. Still, it doesn't degenerate the horror aspect of the film. The gradual yet perilous consumption of the lives of Amelia and Samuel by the relentless scares of The Babadook will remain with you even after a long time of viewing. The atmosphere generated and setting of the house, with fine cinematography is sad and chilling which was very much necessary. Plus, the soundtrack had the same required tone and blended in smoothly with the scary scenes with crisp editing. Acting wise both Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman do a splendid job, it is rare to see such good acting in horror films.
The Babadook will stay in your minds many hours after you finish watching the film, may it be in form of the monster from the creepy book or a monster hiding under plain sight in our daily lives. I really liked the way it is quoted "You can't get rid of The Babadook" signifying that bad things will always be there in our lives but it is in our hands to conceal it. Many aspects in the film can have more than a single interpretation, leading to good amount of discussion about it with others who liked it. There is a lot of ambiguity in many places where I feel a bit more plausible expansion would have been better. In the end, I was really impressed by the film and also believe there are still many small things that I didn't catch which would have added more to the story on first viewing. I will watch it again soon, but right now am too creeped by the weird tone of the film. If you liked mind-bending movies like Enemy, Oculus of 2013 or have taste in psychological horrors like Black Swan or even if you are a horror fan wanting to see something interesting I recommend not to miss this one.
RATING: [4/5]