Strange and Somber, this movie will at least make you think, if nothing else

Rating: 5/10 (13 June 2015)

This movie caught my attention based on it's reviews. Not every review was great, but there were a lot of really favorable ones so, being a fan of the genre, I thought I'd give it a shot. I was a little disappointed.
Let me start off by saying I didn't hate it. The movie does make you think, and does leave a lot up to the viewer to form his own interpretation. For that, it gets it's due. But, for me the movie kinda dragged on, it generally really wasn't that scary, it seemed to contradict itself at times and the climax was very anticlimactic to me. That's why I gave it just 5 stars.
The movie really centers around a widowed mother, Amelia, and her son, Samuel. Amelia is living a pretty menial life, who is still grieving the loss of her husband due to a car accident. You could probably describe her as even being depressed. Her son, however, is a bundle of uncontrolled, mischievous energy who cant seem to stay out of trouble. This fuels her isolation even further as most others cant stand to be around her son. Frankly, I wouldn't want to be around him either, as I couldn't stand him at first. And this made you feel for Amelia, and what she's dealing with and giving up to raise this child alone. The movie does have a very somber and sad tone to it.
Anyways, the boy picks this book for Amelia to read to him one night called "The Babadook". It's an eerie, pop-up picture book that depicts a character similar to Jack the Ripper looking in on a child at night. This scares Samuel, and then things start to get weird.
The interesting thing about this movie is that you soon realize Samuel has a better understanding of what's going on than his mother does, as she seems to really start losing it. And why she's losing it is really up to the viewer's interpretation, like is she really going insane or is there an entity in their house affecting them. I think it's a little of both, and her ability to handle this 'entity' correlates to her ability to pull out her long battle with depression.
As she becomes more withdrawn and odd, you suddenly really start feeling for Samuel, as he's bearing the brunt of her anger. I mean, she's pretty mean to him, and a fight erupts at one point. This is probably the most chilling part of the movie, and it may even be somewhat shocking to some viewers, as Amelia appears ready to kill Samuel, and Samuel is in pure survival mode, but does not want to hurt his mother. He's trying to help her and live at the same time. Again, it's pretty chilling to watch, and you really start to see Samuel differently at this point, that there's more to this kid than just being a whiny brat. Eventually, Amelia realizes she must confront her sickness/entity to save her own life and Samuel's.
'The Babadook' is more psycho-thriller than horror, as it's really not that scary, but it does have it's chilling moments and really makes you think. I can see how some viewers really liked it, but I was left somewhat disappointed. At times I thought I was watching a poorly done parody sketch, and I wasn't always that engaged in the movie or it's characters. The ending was too long as well, like they didn't seem to know how to end it. I'm kinda in the middle on this one, neither hated it nor loved it. The sadness and the oddity of this movie will turn some viewers off. But if you like to think and like ambiguous movies that's open to interpretation, then 'The Babadook' may be right up your alley.