Not perfect but certainly refreshing

Rating: 8/10 (28 November 2014)

We had the usual slew this year of Halloween fodder; from the people who brought us 'Insidious' and 'Paranormal Activity' came....more of the same. It's not that all these movies are necessarily bad, although to call 'The Conjuring' prequel 'Annaebelle' anything more might be a push, but the stories are generally paint-by-numbers, the abused jump-scare technique becomes tired fast, and in the case of 'Ouija', it could be fairly argued that watching paint dry might be more interesting. Part of this Autumn parade, and sadly overshadowed by every other film, was the Australian release 'The Babadook', starring the generally unfamiliar Essie Davies and the disturbingly in-tune 6-year-old Noah Wiseman.
'The Babadook' is, for the most part, an intense two-hander, telling the story of Amelia, in a suspended state of grief after the loss of her husband years earlier, struggling to balance her work and the upbringing of her son Samuel; Davies and Wiseman play parent and child respectively. Samuel is difficult at the best of times; despite an abundance of affection for his mother, he exhibits a lack of obedience and apparently attention-seeking behaviour, which ranges from performing magic tricks to exasperating temper tantrums to efforts that are potentially lethal! Accompanying this is his growing obsession with protecting himself from the monsters that stalk him in his room and at school. One night little Samuel chooses a new bedtime story from the bookshelf, the mysterious, wonderfully designed, over-sized pop-up called 'The Babadook'. With only mild concern as to where this book actually came from, Ameliea begins to read. It is not long before the book is closed, the nightmarish thing left unfinished, but it is too late; Samuel is terrified of the man who will apparently come to get him, the man who they will not be able to get rid of. Other reviews may reveal more, but that is as much setup as I think one needs.
Performances from both main parties are nothing short of phenomenal, with Davies in particular immediately touting an Oscar nomination with her range and ability to go to some uncomfortable places; her intensity brings to mind the forgotten Naomi Watts performance in 'Mulholland Drive'. No expense is spared on classic set and sound design, everything catering to the immersion and ever more startling and bleak tone. The movie is shot with a true artist's eye and edited with clear care; you can really see Kent's adoration of truly classic horror in silent cinema. On the downside, there is a moment that goes into territory that wouldn't be at all out of place in a David Lynch film, which can be said to be one metaphor too far, and speaking personally, a couple more intensely frightening moments with Mr Babadook himself would not have been pushing it too hard. That said, it is to Kent's credit that she eschews most conventions, and dresses those which might normally threaten to be trite in narrative importance rather than simply using them as shock fodder.
The big question about any film adorned with such praise as this one is obviously, is it frightening? My answer to that is no, I did not find the film scary in the sense of being kept up at night. That is, however, only my response and says little about how much another person might react, or indeed about how much I actually enjoyed the film, which is another matter entirely. It is also not a question any one person will answer the same way; horror in cinema is a broad spectrum and whether one even classes 'The Babadook' as a horror depends on one's understanding of, and exposure to, the whole spectrum of the genre. If when you think horror, it is only the recent entourage of James Wan-style gore-fests and jump-scare fuelled ghost stories that come to mind, 'The Babadook' is liable to disappoint you, given its marketing. If, on the other hand, you see that horror can address psychological terror, that a story can ring terrifyingly true on an internal, emotional level, and you can cite 'Let The Right One In', and perhaps more pertinently in this case, 'We Need To Talk About Kevin', Stephen King's 'The Shining' and Polanski's 'Repulsion' as works that scare, then get ready for what you might consider the most refreshing piece of horror for a long time! After all, what was the last horror film you saw all about "the power of love". This is how writer/director Jennifer Kent explained the story to the young Wiseman, and she was being absolutely sincere.
Going by this evidence, I don't doubt that Kent will one day make a masterpiece; this is, after all, one of the strongest directorial debuts I have seen, and whilst 'The Babadook' is perhaps not the film we were promised by the posters, it is nevertheless a surprisingly multi-faceted, emotionally affecting, gorgeous slice of dark imagination, which sincerely addresses a most real and important issue.