a brilliantly subtle/high impact thriller about grief, more so than a boogie-man.

Rating: 9/10 (25 November 2014)

The BABADOOK is one of those rare films that transcends from beyond the screen and truly interacts with the senses. It is an atmospheric and visceral journey that will clot your guts and coke you of air with its delivery and its, sometimes frightening, symbolic imagery.
Some may make the remark that bias with my take on the film due to my Australian origin, however this couldn't be any further from the truth. I have found many Australian films prior to be quite caught up in their own little culture and very rarely acknowledge a greater way to craft a story due to their heavy fixation on the Australian psyche and an urge to alienate "us" from all other cultures, you could say that Australians are often pretentious in their crafting of a visual narrative.
However, I found this pretentious sense to be quite absent from this film. As you can clearly visualize the directors goal, which isn't to demonstrate how wacky and zany Australians can be (with the exception of that infuriating brat Samuel). And it is due to this higher level of presentation that I find the BABADOOK to stand out from the speckled puddle of Australian movies.
Now in all respects on the surface the film is quite dim, a bit, its just another monster movie. Although, that is only the surface... I was surprised when I looked at the many reviews of this film, and I was shocked to discover the few amount of people that acknowledged the deeper aspect of this film. This isn't just a film about a scary sound that goes bump in the night, but its the slow returning of grief from the stubborn mind. This film manages to capture what it is like when the flood gates of sadness are held at bay until their evident collapse. The ignoring of what is gone and can never come back, that is what the BABADOOK entails, its the dark struggle within that must one day be wretched from within. also the excellent delivery of the candy box assortment of scares is also one facet to be fond of, not just the scares but also the moments of bliss too. I occasionally think about the film and a moment that I had forgotten about comes back to mind and I think in utter delight "oh, wasn't that brilliant," and not Manny films can manage that. However not every movie is without its flaws, and to me the ending of this film feels quite flat. In mentioning that fact, the ending only seems frail if looked upon from its outer layer, a deeper analysis does help sturdy the foundations of its accent to the final seconds.
The BABADOOK is a film that is deep, nightmarishly frightening and with am excellent message to boot: that the containment of grief is dangerous, and the lounger you hide from harsh reality, the stronger it grows. And the face of this pain will "make you wish You... Were... Dead