A Gripping Nail-Biter

Rating: 9/10 (4 April 2019)

The movie The Babadook by Jennifer Kent is a film the forces the audience to use their minds to puzzle out the details of the film. The line between reality and dreams becomes blurred as Amelia's mind meshes the two together. The blue-cast and darker colors lent the film a dreamlike quality that made it difficult to distinguish between reality and Amelia's nightmares. The long shadows and dissonant music accompaniment make the viewers second guess whether Amelia was dreaming or awake. As the colors become more washed out and pale, the whispers at the edge of the discordant sounds became louder, jarring the audience and sending them to the edge of their seats. High shots combined with high key lighting left the audience feeling powerless and that there were secrets Kent was keeping from them. As the movie continues, sleep and awake further blend together as Amelia's dead husband demands that she bring Samuel to her. The movie cuts to Samuel as he watches his mother succumb to Babadook. The shadows lengthen and everything becomes darker as the monster firmly entrenches itself in Amelia's mind. As she desperately tries to regain control of herself, darkness engulfs her bedroom while she demands Babadook leave. Whining, high pitched sounds continue, the music reaches a high as Babadook is forced into a basement. It abruptly ends as Amelia and Samuel can finally rest easily. Throughout the entire movie, the director urges the audience to attempt to determine whether the events were rooted in Amelia's exhausted mind or reality. She weaves nightmarish villains slowly into the threads of reality until the viewers second guess themselves as Babadook appears whenever Amelia turns around. The dark shadows Amelia continuously lurks in only emphasizes how vulnerable she is to the nightmare her innocent son tries to warn her about. Just when the shadows seem darkest, Kent offers closure in the guise of a trapped Babadook and a shadow-free house that Amelia and Samuel now live in.