Intelligent and critically acclaimed psychological terror

Rating: 8/10 (29 December 2018)

Truly good horror movies do more than just dole out the jump scares and other cliches. Expertly written horror teases the idea that what is happening on screen actually has a plausible explanation - once we understand what is causing the characters to experience hallucinations and mental illness. The Babadook successfully manages this feat.
Amelia is a single parent grieving the loss of her husband while simultaneously raising her only son, who is showing signs of autism. While her son has an overactive imagination - seeing monsters and the like - the tension and isolation he causes to his mother's life leads her to a mental breakdown. Enter the Babadook, asking to be let in.
What makes the Babadook particularly special is that despite it's horror, it shows genuine compassion to people suffering from the real, invisible, and ever present monsters. Whether that be nurses looking after the elderly with dementia, a mother managing a son with autism, or the feelings of powerlessness experienced by community doctors and support workers. The strain of looking after others with mental problems often causes the carers to fall down into the same hole.
The Babadook is all the more grounded and terrifying because once the patient, intelligent, and observant viewer completes the necessary detective work from the clues in the film - the Babadook is unmasked for what it is.
What makes it truly terrifying, is that we could start seeing the Babadook all around us in our own society,