“The Babadook” turns a children’s book about monsters into something far darker, and it earns every second of its runtime. Writer-director Jennifer Kent builds a family drama around a creature that could easily feel silly, and she lands somewhere between horror and tragedy. The result is a film that stays with you long after the credits roll.
Trailer, via Umbrella Entertainment.
The Babadook Book
The film opens with a young woman reading her son a bedtime story about a monster named The Babadook. The book is strange, unsettling, and clearly meant to terrify children. In the story, a man in a cloak and top hat terrorizes a family. The boy loves the tale, but his mother finds it disturbing. That tension sets the whole movie in motion.
Kent uses the book as a structural device. Scenes from the story appear as flashbacks and flash-forwards, blurring the line between fiction and reality. The Babadook becomes a real threat, but he also stands in for something else entirely. The monster is a metaphor for grief, anger, and the things we refuse to face.
Mother and Son
Essie Davis plays Amelia, a widow raising her young son, Samuel, on her own. She is exhausted, angry, and deeply lonely. Her late husband died in a car accident, and she cannot move past it. She drinks too much, snaps at her neighbors, and barely manages to keep the house together. Samuel, played by Noah Wiseman, is a bright, curious boy who worships his mother but senses something wrong beneath the surface.
Their relationship is the engine of the film. Kent shows us a mother who loves her child but can’t handle him. She is overwhelmed by grief and guilt, and her son becomes a trigger for all of it. He asks questions about his father, and she cannot answer. He wants affection, and she pushes him away. The tension grows until it erupts into something monstrous.
The Monster Arrives
The Babadook appears physically in the second half of the film. He is a tall, thin man in a black cloak, with a top hat and a sharp, cruel face. His arrival is sudden and violent. He attacks Amelia, and she fights back. The scenes of the chase through the house are tense and well-shot. Kent uses sound design to great effect, layering low rumbles and shrieks over the action.
But the Babadook is not really the villain. He is a manifestation of Amelia’s own rage and fear. When she finally accepts that the monster is inside her, the film reaches its climax. The final confrontation is a cathartic release of all the pent-up emotion that has built up over the runtime.
The Grief Metaphor
The film’s central idea is simple but powerful. Grief is a living thing, and it can consume you if you let it. Amelia tries to bury her feelings, but they come out anyway. The Babadook is the shape those feelings take when she stops fighting them.
Kent handles this metaphor with care. The film never explains itself, and it never feels heavy-handed. The Babadook is a character in his own right, but he is also a symptom. When Amelia faces him, she faces her own worst impulses. The film suggests that acknowledging pain is the first step toward healing, even if the process is painful.
The Sound and Look
The production design is excellent. The house is cramped and cluttered, full of boxes and broken furniture. It feels lived-in and worn down. The color palette is dark, with muted browns and grays giving way to flashes of red during the Babadook’s attacks. The lighting is moody, with shadows hiding movement in the corners.
The score, by Paul Leonard-Morrow, is sparse but effective. It uses piano and strings to build dread, and it swells during the chase sequences. The sound design deserves special note. The Babadook’s voice is a deep, guttural growl, and the film layers it with creaks and whispers that make the house feel alive.
| Scene | Length |
|---|---|
| Opening bedtime story | 10 minutes |
| Babadook’s first attack | 20 minutes |
| Mother and son argument | 15 minutes |
| Final confrontation | 15 minutes |
The pacing is tight. The film runs just over an hour and a half, and every scene earns its place. There is no filler, no slow stretches. The tension builds steadily from the first page of the book to the final shot.
The Verdict
“The Babadook” is a small film with a big emotional core. It takes a horror premise and uses it to say something true about loss, anger, and the difficulty of moving forward. Davis gives a career-best performance as a woman trapped in her own grief, and Wiseman holds his own opposite her. The Babadook himself is terrifying without being cartoonish.
The film is not for everyone. Some viewers will find the violence too intense, and the final act can be exhausting. But for those willing to sit with the discomfort, there is real reward. This is a film that respects its audience and its characters.
It is a rare horror movie that leaves you thinking about the people on screen long after the scare has passed. It is a film about love, about failure, and about the strength it takes to face your own darkness.
“The Babadook” is a masterpiece of genre filmmaking, and it earns a score of 9.8 out of 10.
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