Time to Reuse That Childhood Night Light

Rating: 9/10 (28 March 2017)

*** Warning: ﻿This review may contain spoilers ***
Jennifer Kent's The Babadook ﻿﻿crushes the loving memory many of us hold regarding adolescent bedtime stories and ﻿will leave viewers searching for their dusted childhood night light before bed.
Kent so cleverly exploits the innocence of a bedtime story into a terrifying exploration into the psychosis of a mother, who's memory of her dead husband continues to terrorize her years after his death. The movie excellently visualizes the internal struggle that Amelia (Essie Davis) deals with on a regular basis, and how that internal struggle presents itself and impacts her son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), and other members of her community. As the anniversary of his death draws nearer as the film progresses, the viewer begins to understand just how frightening a memory can be and just how detrimental that memory can be to relationships between family and friends. Kent concurrently generates anticipation, suspense and horror as viewers wait to see if Amelia's psychosis can be contained and controlled, or if it will eventually overpower Amelia's freewill and rational thinking and cause her to do things she would not dream of doing. Whatever the result may be, viewers are guaranteed to have trouble falling asleep at night, as the knock of The Babadook resonates in their thoughts: ba Ba-ba DOOK! DOOK! DOOK!