Trauma turns to terror

Rating: 8/10 (29 January 2015)

"The Babadook" centers on a widow whose son's increasing investment in fantasy begins to take over her life. His fantasy world is exacerbated and turns nightmarish after she reads him a bizarre storybook she found in his bedroom, about a mythical monster called "the Babadook." Initially dismissive of his claims of the monster's presence in their home, the entity becomes very real and very dangerous.
Although it is very much a horror film in more ways than one, "The Babdook" is, at its core, a meditation on grief. It takes a parable approach with the nightmarish fable as a method of delivery, but it is really a film about family trauma and how we deal with loss.
Jennifer Kent has extracted all of these private horrors and splayed them on screen for us to see in sublimated and yet explicit ways. The film is very much psychological and a bit of a slowburn until it finally lets loose in the last half hour. Tim Burton-esque special effects are both dreamlike and intimidating, but the real terror of the film is what's left to the imagination. The knocks at the door and the re-emergence of the book on the family's doorstep are minor examples of the subtle spookiness at play.
Essie Davis' performance is outstanding here, and her chemistry with on screen-son Noah Wiseman is spot-on. Since it's a film with a fairly small number of characters, it's detrimental that the main players here are able to convince, and do they ever. Truly incredible performances that we rarely see in horror films.
Overall, "The Babadook" is a dazzling patchwork of fantasy, horror, and family drama written as a fable but intended as a parable. The script is smart and the performances are even smarter, and the film is transfixing even when it's slow. Definitely one of the more original (and well-crafted) post-millennial horror offerings. 8/10.