Not all that!

Rating: 2/10 (6 April 2020)

I just saw this today on Comcast, since I have a free premium week, and it wasn't as good as say, The Omen. Even the latter is just okay because of the better acting by Lee Remick and Gregory Peck.
This story deals with mental illness, which is supposed to manifest in the minds of both mother and irritating boy of maybe 5 years? The mother seems possessed by The Babadook, and maybe she is the personification of the title character, but most of the time she or her little brat are just screaming and no one cares about any of them. What if the actual Babadook would have actually come to life and caused real terror to this 2 person household or maybe their entire neighborhood! That would require quite the imagination of the writer and director to make it unbearable.
It's difficult to make a really good horror film in general. The Bair Witch Project was rather dull until the last 15 minutes, which saved the film. You need to have something truly disturbing, even just one scene, to captivate people.
Alien did it with the one shock scene and a true sense of dread. The same could be said for Salems Lot. Rosemary's Baby was disturbing for when she asks: "What did you do to his eyes?" in the last scene. At least you have to have something which people will remember for a long time.