The Babadook (2014)
Directed by Jennifer Kent
A grieving single mother and her child fall into a deep well of paranoia when an eerie children's book manifests in their home.
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What critics say influenced The Babadook
Several horror movies play on the concept of motherly love as a pure love and a strong enough to vanquish evil like in Mama , but rarely outside of drama do we see the kind of imperfect motherhood shown in The Babadook, which is what makes this Repulsion-like household of horrors so frightening.
As in Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, ordinary household objects gain malignity as the isolation and claustrophobia sets to work on mother and son.
There are many other echoes of screen horror here: clips of Maria Bava’s Black Sabbath; portents of domestic madness in the mode of Polanski’s Repulsion; a general sense of claustrophobia that’s more than a little reminiscent of The Exorcist; a use of grey paint and an overall color-leeched palette to rival The Sixth Sense; and as female-centric psychological horror, it also recalls the evocation of shadow-steeped nocturnal anxiety so chillingly staged in Robert Wise’s The Haunting (63).
She also pays special attention to setting: as the monster gains power over Amelia, the house grows increasingly grotesque, like something out of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (though there are even more architectural references, to The Shining , Repulsion , and The Omen ).
It may remind you of Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) or Polanski’s horrors like Repulsion (1965), Rosemary’s Baby (1969) and The Tenant (1976).
The movie’s long final chapter takes place inside the grim house, where the depiction of Amelia’s claustrophobic crack-up — exacerbated by Sam’s fear and the possible infestation of the Babadook — splits the difference between the insanity-caused terror of Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” and the demon-borne horror of “The Evil Dead.”
In the subgenre of mother horror, The Babadook deserves mention among the likes of Rosemary’s Baby, Dark Water and The Conjuring .
As is all of "The Babadook," a haunting masterpiece of psychological horror, claustrophobia and paranoia in the vein of Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Tenant," Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" and William Friedkin's "The Exorcist."
Combining fright and psychological analysis, Kent delivers a metaphor of horror and parenthood as powerful as “The Shining,” “The Exorcist” or “Rosemary’s Baby,” where moms and dads learned they were no match for demons.
Kent has given us a grown-up horror tale in the tradition of "Rosemary's Baby, "Psycho" and "The Exorcist."
“Psycho,” “The Exorcist,” “The Shining,” “Rosemary’s Baby”?
In Roman Polanski’s sinister Rosemary’s Baby (1968) Mia Farrow plays an expectant mother who has just moved into a new apartment block.
The film’s own publicity gleefully invokes Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Tenant,” as well as William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” (Friedkin is a loud fan of “The Babadook”), “The Omen” and “Let the Right One In.”
It may remind you of Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) or Polanski’s horrors like Repulsion (1965), Rosemary’s Baby (1969) and The Tenant (1976).
Saturated with dread and genuinely unsettling, Australian director Jennifer Kent's first feature The Babadook is an elegant little horror film reminiscent of Roman Polanski's "apartment trilogy" -- Repulsion (1965), Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Tenant (1976) -- albeit minus Polanski's kinky male gaze.
As is all of "The Babadook," a haunting masterpiece of psychological horror, claustrophobia and paranoia in the vein of Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Tenant," Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" and William Friedkin's "The Exorcist."
Its influences can be felt throughout — “The Shining” and “The Exorcist” in particular — but Kent demonstrates a clear understanding of how to get the sort of gnawing terror those films manage.
Like “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “The Shining,” this is also about a child who sees more clearly than the adults.
As is all of "The Babadook," a haunting masterpiece of psychological horror, claustrophobia and paranoia in the vein of Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Tenant," Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" and William Friedkin's "The Exorcist."
Combining fright and psychological analysis, Kent delivers a metaphor of horror and parenthood as powerful as “The Shining,” “The Exorcist” or “Rosemary’s Baby,” where moms and dads learned they were no match for demons.
“Psycho,” “The Exorcist,” “The Shining,” “Rosemary’s Baby”?
But instead of Wan's in-your-face jump scares and fakeouts, The Babadook has more in common with The Shining, mainly because it's a deliberately plotted horror tale about the specter of mental illness.
Author Stephen King (The Shining) and director William Friedkin (“The Exorcist”) have been vocal early adopters of “The Babadook” and it’s no wonder – the film hangs on their work like a coat on a coat hook.
William Friedkin, who directed the movie that tops poll after poll as being the scariest ever made — 1973's The Exorcist, natch — is quoted as stating that "I've never seen a more terrifying film than The Babadook.
The last section of The Babadook is an exorcism movie, but different in thrust from The Exorcist, The Conjuring, and other “religious” films in which a male authority (often from the Church) arrives to expel the demon that has descended on a weak family.
No less an expert than William Friedkin, the director of “The Exorcist,” has declared he’s never seen a more terrifying film.
As is all of "The Babadook," a haunting masterpiece of psychological horror, claustrophobia and paranoia in the vein of Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Tenant," Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" and William Friedkin's "The Exorcist."
Such is the case with Aussie writer-director Jennifer Kent and her mesmerizing, disquieting, unexpected debut feature, "The Babadook," a film that, like 1973's "The Exorcist," seems to have arrived fully formed as an instant classic.
There are many other echoes of screen horror here: clips of Maria Bava’s Black Sabbath; portents of domestic madness in the mode of Polanski’s Repulsion; a general sense of claustrophobia that’s more than a little reminiscent of The Exorcist; a use of grey paint and an overall color-leeched palette to rival The Sixth Sense; and as female-centric psychological horror, it also recalls the evocation of shadow-steeped nocturnal anxiety so chillingly staged in Robert Wise’s The Haunting (63).
A key influence is the terrifying “The Drop of Water” segment of Mario Bava’s 1963 masterpiece “Black Sabbath,” a movie seen on Amelia’s television.
Horror’s long history is also evoked via the glowing television set, which always seems to be playing something weird or uncanny, whether it be old silent shorts by Georges Méliès or Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960).
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The film is reminiscent of the 30-minute short film The Grandmother by David Lynch, whom Kent has cited as an influence (the auteur's has a singular approach to horror ).
"The Babadook" borrows heavily from early David Lynch, not just his award-winning short "The Grandmother" but his classic "Eraserhead," an extended nightmare that often plays out on a literal stage (the same happens more than once in "The Babadook").
Jennifer Kent’s excellent Australian film wades its way through paedophobic territory similar to that covered by David Lynch’s Eraserhead and Jaume Collet-Serra’s undervalued Orphan.
"The Babadook" borrows heavily from early David Lynch, not just his award-winning short "The Grandmother" but his classic "Eraserhead," an extended nightmare that often plays out on a literal stage (the same happens more than once in "The Babadook").
Later, there’s a shot near the end involving the family dog that’s a darkly comic riff on the opening scene of Blue Velvet .
There are many other echoes of screen horror here: clips of Maria Bava’s Black Sabbath; portents of domestic madness in the mode of Polanski’s Repulsion; a general sense of claustrophobia that’s more than a little reminiscent of The Exorcist; a use of grey paint and an overall color-leeched palette to rival The Sixth Sense; and as female-centric psychological horror, it also recalls the evocation of shadow-steeped nocturnal anxiety so chillingly staged in Robert Wise’s The Haunting (63).
Look past the horror trope of the Satanic or disturbed little boy seen in The Omen, The Ring, and The Sixth Sense, and you'll find a child struggling to deal with the loss of a father he never knew, and Amelia's subsequent, deeply buried resentment toward him—in a completely normal way .
Wiseman didn't get the memo because he is Davis' equal in every scene here and is living the part rather than saying his lines - Harvey Stephens in The Omen and Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense have some serious competition.
With his cowled eyes and pallid skin, young Noah Wiseman combines the plucky spark of Phantasm ’s Michael Baldwin with the haunted gaze of The Hills Have Eyes ’ Michael Berryman – a figure of both pity and fear who inspires wildly contradictory impulses in his tormented mother.
Or A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010), in which classic villian Freddy Krueger, who was brought to life in the terrifying 1984 original film, is rendered significantly less intimidating as a result of CGI effects.
When things really get rolling, Kent's film has echoes of genre classics like "The Exorcist," "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Poltergeist" without being derivative.
There are also intimations of Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
Drawing on The Shining and A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Babadook finds a strong identity all of its own and this is a hugely impressive debut.
With his cowled eyes and pallid skin, young Noah Wiseman combines the plucky spark of Phantasm ’s Michael Baldwin with the haunted gaze of The Hills Have Eyes ’ Michael Berryman – a figure of both pity and fear who inspires wildly contradictory impulses in his tormented mother.
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There are many other echoes of screen horror here: clips of Maria Bava’s Black Sabbath; portents of domestic madness in the mode of Polanski’s Repulsion; a general sense of claustrophobia that’s more than a little reminiscent of The Exorcist; a use of grey paint and an overall color-leeched palette to rival The Sixth Sense; and as female-centric psychological horror, it also recalls the evocation of shadow-steeped nocturnal anxiety so chillingly staged in Robert Wise’s The Haunting (63).
Kent is clearly steeped in the history of horror, as her depiction of the Babadook is an amalgam of a number of classical horror figures—the clothes of the mad doctor in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), the weird grinning visage of Lon Chaney’s vampire in Tod Browning’s lost London After Midnight (1927), and Max Shreck’s elongated digits in Nosferatu (1922).
And then there's the Babadook — a taloned, top-hatted madman who, even as he stays in the shadows, seems to bear a close family resemblance to Lon Chaney's villain in "London After Midnight."
Its “monster” is, by Kent’s own admission, grounded in the image of Lon Chaney in London After Midnight (1927) — a particularly shrewd choice since that film is lost and the image is all we have.
Judging by the dark, sketchy drawings in the book, Mister Babadook is a top-hatted, cloaked figure with wild eyes and spidery fingers — he suggests a silent screen villain, equal parts Nosferatu, Dr. Caligari, John Barrymore’s Mr. Hyde and Lon Chaney in “London After Midnight.”