Ok,
so I've thought of three stand-alone intros for this review, and I
quite like all of them, so I'll just jam them all in:
Don't
worry lady, I don't love your kid either.
Damn,
that was way better than I expected it to be.
Have
I ever mentioned how much I hate kids? I'm with Babadook on this one.
Alright
now lets start the review.
This
is a brilliant horror film. I actually found it difficult to get
through in one sitting - in a good way. What I like here is that the
inner and outer demons are blended so thoroughly that the Babadook
doesn't even have to exist for this story to work.
It
focuses almost exclusively on a mother and her son. The father was
killed in a car accident on the way to the hospital when she was
giving birth, and she is very much not over it. After establishing
the difficulty she has in loving her son, we see tensions increase as
thanks to the outside force of the Babadook, which is basically
another variant of the usual chill-horror monster staple. What I like
is that everything could be put down to her own issues though, and
how her strange behaviour warpes the world view of her kid. The
ending is happy to an extent, but the monster isn't really beaten,
merely kept at bay for now. You have to wonder what the kid will
think in ten years when his mum is still taking bowls of worms down
to the basement every day to feed something that likely doesn't
exist.
The
editing is beautiful, with lots of shots with little or no sound, or
where the sound suddenly cuts out (a favourite technique of mine).
The camera angles, use of occasional POV, and lighting is all nicely
implemented too and I can tell that the director has thought about
every little thing here.
This
is backed up by pretty solid acting and a well written minimalist
script. There are few cheap scares (apart from the cliché tooth
extraction scene - yawn), and tension is built well, though the plot
did plod a little occasionally. Some of the same beats were repeated,
and this is fine so long as you're alright with a slow burner, but
would get boring if you're not. I can imagine a 20 minute version of
this film working well too, maybe as an episode of 'The Twilight
Zone'.
Also,
why do parents read their kids such crap every night? I know they
won't remember most of it, but you could at least throw in a few
Greek myths and the 'Chronicles of Narnia', or something.
The Babadook: 54.7