Carves a pit into your stomach that won't feel whole for long after the film has ended. Utterly masterful.

Rating: 10/10 (27 October 2014)

I don't want to give the film a number, because numbers are too limiting and don't really encapsulate the essence of a film. A 10 suggests a film to be completely perfect, and although I believe The Babadook is, it still seems almost hyperbolic. A number is just a digestible verdict of a compendium of thoughts, so rather than this continued waffling I'll actually try to articulate my opinion of the film.
I'm no connoisseur of Horror cinema, and really couldn't confidently point out all the influences and tropes that make up each film, but as a general self-confessed film buff I'd like to, with some measure of certainty, declare this a masterpiece. Again, hyperbolic. But I don't bestow that phrase lightly. It is one of the most overwhelming, emotionally exhausting films I've had the pleasure of seeing. It is a complete drainage of the psyche; not an unwelcome one like Lucy (2014) that in its stupidity and banality seems like an intellectual thief trying to rob you of your enjoyment, but a welcome fatigue, one that in tiring you invites you to enjoy every frame available to the eye. (Which is limited in this event, as your shirt will be desperately pulled up to your forehead, as you try to wish away the terror of this spectacle)
The atmosphere is so perfectly realised from the get-go. The subdued and repressed blues and greys of the house in which the film largely takes place, and the drab and tediously homely colours of our protagonist Amelia's clothes set the tone immediately, and also forewarn us as to what we've gotten ourselves in to. The set-design is immaculate; the house empty and sparsely decorated enough to put us at unease and yet accurately reflect the psychology and financial struggle of the mother Amelia. On this note, I should say the film is true to life. The premise, which sees a soon-to-be mother (Essie Davies) lose her Husband in childbirth and mid-journey to hospital, and never recover from this loss, is not glossed over, the material implications of this never ignored. In American cinema, particularly horror and comedy, we always see the world through this filter of artifice. The people are so perfect and privileged, and their world is so infuriatingly unperturbed before whatever horror or mishap it is that sets the plot rolling.
Our mother, and her son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman) do not have a happy life when we first see them, and their modest-at-best-household conveys this perfectly. Amelia diligently works to support herself and her son, yet Samuel is a troubled and exasperated young boy, plagued by the child's irrationality, and a young boy's longing for a father he never had, and so she is constantly fighting for some peace of mind. She herself is still reeling from her husband's death. The opening sequence sets this premise, yet in the world of the intangible nightmare; the sound is muted and drowned, and Amelia crashes back to bed. (The sound design reminded me briefly of the Exorcist, with its surreal use of silence) She is a vulnerable woman, instantly sympathetic in her plight, and is a true triumph of character that American counter-parts don't give us. She has a mental precariousness and financial instability that is wholly relatable.
As she increasingly grows exhausted and frail, we feel as if we are too. Her and the son, whom the film allows to share such a sincere and tender, yet unstable relationship, steal our sympathy, and we are emotionally involved without realising it. The dynamic of mother-son relationship is so unfiltered in its unflinching domesticity, that as we progress and the horrors unfold we are almost screaming of them to be allowed some relief. Some shred of respite. Essie Davies is most comparable to Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby, and her performance is inarguably equal. Without theatrics or over-the-top hysterics, she marvellously plays the psychologically unravelling mother. Noah Wiseman offers one of the best child performances I've seen.
I watched The Conjuring last night, and it is plagued by all the flaws I described. The people in it are ultimately just hollow tools, puppets to orchestrate some mild scares for the audience, but the Babadook is so far removed from that, that it's undoubtedly triumphant. They are real people. And we care for them, completely. Jennifer Kent's direction and script-work, and the two leading performances, the only significant (in size) performances, are utterly magnificent. The other character, The Babadook itself, is a masterpiece in tease, in taunting the imagination but never revealing itself to the eye. It largely inhabits a book in which the characters read, and these illustrations are malevolent, so sinister in their creation that they are enough to haunt our dreams for weeks. When the creature does manifest itself in some vague physical form, obscured in shadow, it is almost more than enough.
The Babadook doesn't do jump-scares. Nothing throw-away or cheap. What it does do is slowly encroaching terror, like a shadow gradually invading your periphery. As the characters fall into terror, so do we. The gnawing anxiety in my stomach was such that I considered leaving the screening to calm myself.
The cinematography, the presentation of the film is subtle, and always lets the anxiety unfurl. An early example, a transition, in which sinister shadows travel across a duvet in a time-lapse like fashion is ambiguous in its nature, and offers us no comfort. Are they the shadows of some malevolent presence, or can we seek a rational explanation, such as the shadows of the sun progressing with the day? The film maintains this careful ambiguity, to the point that the film can work on two levels. But ultimately, it is one of these levels which best fits, and encapsulates the idea of the film: There is nothing more destructive than the human consciousness.