Review: Limited Run
The Babadook | Jennifer Kent | USA | 2014 | 93 min
Union South Marquee Theater, February 5-8, follow link to wudfilm.com for showtimes»
Amelia (Essie Davis), a single mother still haunted by her husband’s death, struggles to control her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) and his fear of monsters. Samuel’s normal childhood fear of things that go bump in the night becomes more substantial as Amelia herself becomes consumed by a storybook monster, the Babadook. This chilling film utilizes subtle storytelling and an intense style to create a very frightening experience.
The point of the horror genre is to scare the audience. I love to be scared, but unfortunately very few films are actually spooky. Scaring mass audiences is a difficult thing to do, and usually cheap tactics are adopted, like shocks or gore over genuine suspense. Very rarely do I come across a film that I find frightening.
The Babadook, really freaked me out.
It did not make me jump and the story wasn’t filled with blood and gore. Instead I felt uneasy, and couldn’t help squirming in my seat, looking back and forth from the screen to my surroundings. I watched this film alone (during the day, in fact), and I am embarrassed by how freaked out I was.
The film’s tone rather than its plot was what I found chilling. Amelia’s helplessness made the film so hard to watch. Amelia’s desperation is established early on. Samuel’s nightmares wake her up every night. She looks under his bed, in his closet, reads him a story and then lies awake while he grinds his teeth and holds tightly onto her body. During the day she goes through her routine job, on the verge of exhaustion, until her son gets in trouble for bringing another weapon to school.
One night her son chooses a book called The Babadook to read. The book has horrific pictures and predicts the death of a little boy. Samuel becomes obsessed with the Babadook, believing he can see the creature and that it has come to kill him and his mom. Samuel’s delinquent behavior quickly spins out of control, which pushes away everyone in Amelia’s life, making her even more isolated. When it seems like she is completely alone, Amelia herself begins to see the Babadook. Without knowing what it wants, or what it is capable of, she feels unable to escape its presence. Soon the Babadook overcomes her and she lets it in.
Director Jennifer Kent, in her feature film debut, creates a tense atmosphere by alternating precise and jumpy editing to portray Amelia’s the inner feelings. Amelia is continuously shown in close-ups, her eyes glazed and bags under them. Shots showing Amelia falling into a bed, or picking at a cockroach nest that isn’t real, suggest Amelia’s subjective experience. When Amelia can’t sleep, jumpy editing shows her head glitch back and forth from dark until morning. She is tense and exhausted, and this makes the audience tense as well.
The film heavily relies on the performances by Davis and Wiseman, since the majority of screen time consists of Amelia and Samuel alone in the house. While both actors succeed in portraying dark and troubled characters, both remain likable throughout the film. Davis’s performance establishes Amelia’s helplessness, and Wiseman makes Samuel both cute and terrifying.
I haven’t seen a movie this terrifying since I watched Rosemary’s Baby a few years ago. Jennifer Kent has created a film that is not only scary, but intelligent and well-made. I can’t wait until another horror film lives up to this one.
