📖 Synopsis

“If it’s in a word, or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook.”

Amelia (Essie Davis) is coping with the death of her husband recently while attempting to parent her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman), who is dealing with hyperactivity. Samuel is six years old, but with the way that he acts, you would guess that he is younger. Samuel believes that he suffers from some sort of violent and erratic behavior due to the monsters that he thinks live in their home. Because Samuel was so young, there is little to no information available about him or his life prior to Samuel’s father dying during a car wreck on the way to the hospital to deliver Samuel.

A bizarre pop up book named Mister Babadook appears on their bookshelf overnight, out of nowhere. In it’s horrifying message, once you become aware of the Babadook, it will never leave. And soon after, a shadowy figure starts tormenting them and Amelia begins losing her grip on reality. Her buried grief and trauma or a real entity – is the Babadook?

• 🏆 The Babadook was nominated for and received various awards and accolades for which it became famous internationally, particularly among the LGBTQ+ community.
• 🏆 Best Horror Film – Empire Awards
• 🏆 Best Actress Essie Davis – Austin Film Critics Association
• 🏆 Best Screenplay & Director – New York Film Critics Circle
• 🏆 Best Horror Movie – Fangoria Chainsaw Awards

Veteran critics in the industry noted it as one of the best horror movies of the decade ever made.

🎭 Cast & Crew

• Amelia Vanek: Essie Davis
• Samuel: Noah Wiseman
• Claire: Hayley McElhinney
• Robbie: Daniel Henshall
• Gracie Roach: Barbara West

🔹 Filmmaker Jennifer Kent turned her 2005 short film Monster into a feature length movie to shed light towards the delicate topics of grief and motherhood.

📊 Reception on IMDb & Audience Ratings

IMDb: 6.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 98% with critics and 72% for audience review

Metacritic: 86/100 – Universal acclaim

Those in entertainment offered acclaim for the, ‘historical psychological depth’ and the nightmarish world alongside fantastic performances. Some audience members, however, attested, ‘this is more nuanced than most horror films are used to.’

🔍 Personal Insights & Cultural Significance

The Babadook is not like most horror films that relish in relying upon jump scares and paranormal elements, this film at its core serves as an intricate study of depression, grief, and motherhood. The Babadook, in turns, refers to her attempts of self-sabotage. It is associated with Amelia’s repressed trauma.

The story subverts expectations from the perspective of a mother who seeks to protect her child from an oncoming danger. Rather, are we in a position where we have to introspect if the mother herself has emerged as the real danger. Essie Davis is surely great in depicting mother’s mental collapse that feels uncomfortably visceral.

Interestingly, the Babadook used to be just an Internet Meme used for satirizing the notion of Queer representation. Since the wider queer community adopted this character as a queer figure, there has emerged a Babadook mascot that folds into pride flags and range of pride paraphernalia thus earning ‘The Babadook’ its share of fame.