High-end horror

Rating: 8/10 (25 May 2015)

Classic horror movies have always gained their power from externalising on screen those deep, dark fears we'd rather forget. Whether it be the 1930s Universal Movie Monsters which were updates of long-told folk tales or the Slasher boom of the 1970s and 1980s with their commentary on the fallibility of our own parents, a good horror movie has always been one which knows how to push our buttons and is not afraid to, well, scare us. Unfortunately, many horror movies over the last couple of decades have taken the superficial route of quiet-loud dynamics and/or excessive gore to get byand oh how boring it is. However, Writer/Director Jennifer Kent has delivered something which, although not a "classic", nevertheless takes the horror back to the disturbing territory where it thrives.
Amelia (Essie Davis) is a single mother struggling to cope. She is still finding it difficult to deal with the violent death of her husband several years before and her young son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) is terrified by a monster which he believes is haunting him. At first Amelia dismisses his claims as a particularly disruptive form of childish imagination but when a creepy book is delivered which tells the story of Mr. Babadook, she begins to suspect that a sinister presence is indeed nearby.
The film then shows Amelia as she slowly unravels and succumbs to the monsters malevolence, in the process becoming a threat to both herself and Samuel. Upto this point the movie has crafted a bleak and empty atmosphere illustrative of the emotional landscape of a woman at the end of her tether. However, from this point on the movie shifts into brutal and horrifying territory. Now, don't get me wrongeven at its most terrifying moments, the film never once resorts to the cheap scare-tactics so overemployed by contemporary horrors. Instead, the scares build on the actions of the characters which have been meticulously built on the carefully constructed atmosphere.
By the end I felt exhausted from the ordeal of watching someone purge (literally) the corrosive effects of grief to rediscover the fundamental values of their existence. Heavy stuff, and certainly an emotional weight not something usually ascribed to the horror genre. Which is the real tragedyas this kind of emotional raw-nerve is precisely the ground horror was built to explore.
In some ways it reminded me of Andrzej Zulawski's 'Possession' (1981) in that, while still a horror, it is more art-house than grind-house. For this reason the film may confuse or alienate some. However, if you have a real regard for the potential of the genre then it is well worth a watch.