Australians with poltergeists must be pretty pissed off. Is it not enough that every single living creature on that continent is specially equipped to kill you? Now the undead have to stake their claim, too? And, consequently, you’d think Aussie’s would be all, “pffft. Yeah, pal, grow some fangs and we’ll talk. Until then? I’m gonna set-up some platypus traps. Those things are poisonous.”
Single mom Amelia (Essie Davis) has one of those lives nobody envies. Her house is isolated; her job is demanding; she doesn’t sleep well and her small boy is entering his fifth consecutive year of the terrible twos. In fact, her boy is costing her friends. One wonders if big-eyed Samuel (Noah Wiseman) is setting a local record for principal’s office appearances because he misses mom so much. Lately, Samuel has taken his super-hero complex to the next level, constructing his own weaponry (a potato gun) and bringing it to school. Well, why wouldn’t you? American kids get to bring their weapons to school, why can’t I?
So one bedtime, Samuel suggests a new story entitled The Babadook. It’s a pop-up book where all the images are scary or grisly. Aw, isn’t that cute? Here’s the lever that makes the possessed mom slice her child’s throat, and here’s the pull tab to make blood come out of the neck. The non-grisly pages are highlighted with sinister text introducing The Bababook, a dark spectre with a top hat who talks a big game, but is real shy on specifics or history. To me, it looked like somebody made a pop-up book of Slash from Guns ‘n’ Roses.
You just know the production crew had a blast constructing this pop-up book, no?
Naturally, Samuel wakes his mother during the 
night announcing the arrival of said Babadook. The predictable reaction sets Samuel further at odds with his mother. She, lacking for sleep and starting to see and hear abnormal things herself, is clearly losing it. I watched The Babadook wondering if there was an actual villain. I mean, yes, some inexplicable things “happen,” but this is a story about a mother and her son, and, ostensibly, only a mother and her son. There are no extra family members and a limited number of on-lookers. I.e. there’s no Baba body count. So, are Amelia and Samuel being threatened by something other worldly or is Amelia just a basket case? She exhibits every sign of a woman under far too much stress.
The Babadook itself seems much more interested in the scare than the catch. Maybe it just doesn’t have the stomach for true kills. I dunno, but lacking for sharp weapons or the usual, “I ate your neighbor last night, mmmm, might do the same to you,” Baba seems content to make your life spooky and unpleasant. I think Amelia just needs to get beyond that part. Provided, of course, she isn’t the source – which, of course, answers the eternal “why don’t they just leave the house?” horror quandry.
“Babadook” is hardly the name of an evil entity; it sounds like a guest on “The Ed Sullivan Show” (“ladies and gentleman … The Babadook”) or a toddler’s plaything (“sweetheart, where did you put your babdook?”) or an Aboriginal sect really into college basketball. This film has excellent control for the moody, bleak feel of horror, but the feel seems distinctly at odds with the silly title.
♪Ba ba ba ba ba badook
Ba ba ba ba ba badook
Oh Babadook, don’t be a shnook
Oh Babadook
You got me squawkin’ and a squealin’
Flockin’ and a fleein’
Babadook
Ba ba ba ba ba badook
Called me a kook
Needed to puke
Up Babadook; gave him a sharp rebuke
Oh Babadook ba ba Babadook
Your antics make me loony
Get the Hell out, soon-y
Babadook ba ba Babadook♫
Not Rated, 93 Minutes
D: Jennifer Kent
W: Jennifer Kent
Genre: Crazy or infested?
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Classic horror fans, to whom torment means more than body count
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Nervous single mothers
♪ Parody inspired by “Barbra Ann”
