A superior horror movie!

Rating: 9/10 (2 May 2020)

The Babadook (2014) (spoilers)
This is a superior horror movie. It's extremely intense and very well-made. The actors in it are outstanding. Great acting can suck you into a movie like nothing else about the production can. You watch Amelia, the mother, played by Essie Davis, with a growing mix of fascination, apprehension and terror as she slowly descends into madness. It's like something out of Edgar Allan Poe, arguably the best horror writer of all. The best horror is the kind that reminds of our fallen and vulnerable condition living in a world ruled by the devil, something Poe (and the makers of this movie) was very good at. Also, great horror makes you care about the person or persons who are being subjected to it. And you care about Amelia deeply. You care because you understand that she's vulnerable and helpless and therefore susceptible to the power of the devil who comes to her here in the form of the Babadook, a demonic character in a children's book.
You care about Amelia and you care about her son Samuel. In fact, he ends up melting your heart. Samuel is played by Noah Wiseman who is every bit as talented as Haley Joel Osment (he of "The Sixth Sense" fame) was. At first Samuel is annoying. He is disobedient and hard-headed and extremely needy. But once the demon, the Babadook, invades their home, Samuel, frail and small though he is, is the only one who can help free the home from the evil attacker.
The Babadook is a tale about demon-possession and about a love that understands deep things and knows no limits. Children are like that in the way they love. Samuel is like that:
Samuel: I know you don't love me. The Babadook won't let you. But I love you, mom, and I always will.
One of the sad things about Amelia's and Samuel's predicament is that they are utterly alone in their misery. Their friends have deserted them, leaving them to face their formidable foe on their own. When Amelia goes to the police station to tell the police about the Babadook and what he has been doing, the officers look at her like she's a crazy person. No one can help her and her son.
This movie reminded me of other movies. In "The Sixth Sense", the little boy, Cole, is the only one who can see dead people. In "The Babadook", at first, Samuel is the only one who knows that the demon is real. The movie is also like "The Shining", but instead of the father and husband, Jack Torrance, losing his mind, it's the mother. And, finally, the images and pictures in the children's book brought to mind the movie "Coraline".