- Directed by Jennifer Kent
- Written by Jennifer Kent
- Stars Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Denshall
- Run Time: 1 Hour 34 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5WQZzDRVtw
Synopsis
Amelia dreams about being in a traffic accident with her husband. Her son Samuel has nightmares about monsters. Credits roll.
Samuel is an annoying child, and he’s obsessed with monsters. Amelie is a nurse, and she gets a call from school about Samuel’s obsession with weapons. He has “significant behavioral problems.” Amelia wants Samuel to get special, individual attention from the public school system.
Samuel explains to a stranger that his father died in a car accident driving Amelia to the hospital to give birth to him seven years ago. Amelia’s friends don’t want their children to play with Samuel anymore, because he’s so troubled and off. Amelia finds the dog scratching at her basement door, but the door is locked, so there can’t be anything down there.
Samuel picks a bedtime story from the shelf. It’s a book called “The Babadook.” It rhymes, and it’s about a friendly monster. But it quickly gets dark. It’s not a children’s story, and Samuel goes into a screaming fit.
The next day, Amelia forbids Samuel to even mention the Babadook or monster-talk of any kind. Robbie is friendly with Amelia at work, and she thinks he’s nice. She gets ten calls from her sister, Samuel wouldn’t shut up about the Babadook. Robbie comes over, and Samuel spoils that too.
It’s clear that Amelia isn’t completely over the death of her husband, and little Samuel is only making it worse. She finds glass in her food, and Samuel explains that “The Babadook did it!”
Is there a monster? Is it exerting mental pressure on Amelia, or is it all just real pressures? It could be either.
Something happens one night, and Samuel is terrified. Amelie Rips the Babadook book to shreds. The lights flicker that night, and Amelia hears footsteps in the house.
Samuel makes an impression at his cousin’s birthday party. “Why can’t you just be normal!” She screams at him. Samuel has a convulsion, and the doctor checks him out. She begs the doctor to give Samuel sedatives. That night, she finally has a quiet night’s sleep.
In the morning, there’s a knock on the door, and when she looks, it’s the Babadook book, all taped up and put back together. It shows the mother killing the dog, killing the child, and then killing herself. It’s now a lot more graphic than it was before, so she burns it in the grille outside. She gets a phone call, “Ba-ba-dook ook ook.”
Children’s services come by the house. Samuel tells them about the drugs his mother gave him, and they are unimpressed. That night, she sees the Babadook in her neighbor’s apartment and hears strange noises in her own house. She hears it and sees it in the room this time, so now she believes in the monster.
Amelia, completely sleep-deprived, starts to take things out on Samuel. Amelia is pretty much losing her mind by this point, and starts to sleep with her husband’s violin. Samuel wants to stay somewhere else at night, and from the way Amelia’s started acting, I don’t exactly blame him. She’s starting to dream about killing Samuel.
The sedatives keep making Samuel sick, but Amelia won’t stop feeding them to him. She starts being mean to the dog, who won’t come around her anymore either. She talks to her dead husband, who says they can all be together again. “All you have to do is bring me the boy.” That night. She strangles the dog and then pulls out one of her own teeth.
She comes after Samuel, but he fights her off with his weapons. The old lady next door comes over to see what the ruckus is all about. This breaks the spell, at least for a bit, and Amelia apologizes to Samuel. They’ll both stay next door tonight. Samuel, on the other hand, stabs her and then it’s “Home Alone” as she chases him. He wins.
Amelia wakes up tied up in the basement. She then pukes up the Babadook, or maybe a gallon of blood, whichever. Samuel says they can’t escape the Babadook. Amelia screams at the monster to go away, and it does.
The two of them go to stay with the old lady next door, and things start to recover. They gather worms from the garden, and Amelia unlocks the basement door. She takes the worms downstairs to feed to the Babadook, which she keeps down there now like a pet. Samuel finally has a birthday party.
Commentary
I have often complained about children in horror films, and this kid is the worst of the worst. I suspect the vast majority of the audience wanted this kid to get eaten, maimed, possessed, or otherwise mutilated after the first ten minutes. Never has a more obnoxious, annoying child been featured in any film. If there was ever a temptation to have children, potential parents should be forced to sit through this training film.
Amelia is cracking up from grief and pressure, and the film is clearly about her descent into madness. She lost her husband in an accident, is a single mother, and has had numerous issues with her kid’s behavior and personality. It wears on a person. I know this, and I only had to sit through 45 minutes of the film before I wanted to kill the kid. This was probably not the filmmaker’s intent, but there it is.
As long as the kid is annoying, it was all very unpleasant, but once the mother went crazy, it got a lot more creepy and entertaining. I can see why people find this movie unsettling, as it’s mostly just a story about an insane mother abusing her child. It’s very weird.