Might be one of the best horror films of recent years, except they felt the need to tell you up front exactly what was going to happen and what the central metaphor is

Rating: 7/10 (18 January 2015)

A solid horror movie which was, for me, a little disappointing. I kept hearing it was the best horror flick in a long while, and I just can't agree. The set-up feels a little cliché, first off. The biggest flaw is that the central metaphor (and pretty much the whole plot) is laid out in such a hamfisted way, I was just watching it play out exactly the way they said it was going to. The monster, the Babadook, is a shadowy entity that's haunting a single mother and her poorly behaved six year-old son. Early in the film, the child finds a strange storybook and has his mother read it as a bedtime story - it's this book that tells us the whole story up front (more its second appearance a little while later than right away). As unsurprising as it, it's still fairly successful. There are plenty of nice chills to be had. Essie Davis, who plays the mother, is absolutely fantastic, actually giving one of the best performances of the year. The son, Noah Wiseman, well, let's just say you're going to want to strangle him from the outset. That's exactly the reaction Jennifer Kent wanted, and thus his casting is beyond perfect.