A mother (Essie Davis) and her young son (Noah Wiseman) must get past terrible tragedy in The Babadook
THE BABADOOK (Jennifer Kent, 2014)
IFC Center
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Friday, June 21, and Saturday, June 22, 12:10 am
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A sleeper hit at Sundance that enjoyed a hair-raising extended run at IFC Center and was named Best First Film of 2014 by the New York Film Critics Circle, The Babadook is back at IFC as part of the “Waverly Midnights: Parental Guidance” series, screening ten minutes past midnight on Friday and Saturday night. The Babadook is a frightening tale of a mother and her young son — and a suspicious, scary character called the Babadook — trapped in a terrifying situation. Expanded from her 2005 ten-minute short, Monster, writer-director Jennifer Kent’s debut feature focuses on the relationship between single mom Amelia (Essie Davis), who works as a nursing home aide, and her seemingly uncontrollable six-year-old son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), who is constantly getting into trouble because he’s more than just a little strange. Sam was born the same day his father, Oskar (Ben Winspear), died, killed in a car accident while rushing Amelia to the hospital to give birth, resulting in Amelia harboring a deep resentment toward the boy, one that she is afraid to acknowledge. Meanwhile, Sam walks around with home-made weapons to protect his mother from a presence he says haunts them. One night Amelia reads Sam a book that suddenly appeared on the shelf, an odd pop-up book called Mister Babadook that threatens her. She tries to throw it away, but as Sam and the book keep reminding her, “You can’t get rid of the Babadook.” Soon the Babadook appears to take physical form, and Amelia must face her deepest, darkest fears if she wants she and Sam to survive.
Writer-director Jennifer Kent explores classic horror tropes in her feature debut, the sleeper hit The Babadook
The Babadook began life as a demonic children’s book designed by illustrator Alex Juhasz specifically for the film — and one that can now be preordered from the movie’s website, although you might want to think twice before inviting the twisted tome into your house. The gripping film, shot by Polish cinematographer Radek Ladczuk in subdued German expressionist tones of black, gray, and white with bursts of other colors, evokes such classic horror fare as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, where place plays such a key role in the terror. The Babadook itself is a kind of warped combination of the villains from F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Hideo Nakata’s The Ring. Kent, a former actress who studied at Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art with Davis, lets further influences show in the late-night television Amelia is obsessed with, which includes films by early French wizard Georges Méliès. But the real fear comes from something that many parents experience but are too ashamed or embarrassed to admit: that they might not actually love their child, despite trying their best to do so. At its tender heart, The Babadook is a story of a mother and son who must go through a kind of hell if they are going to get past the awful way they were brought together. “Waverly Midnights: Parental Guidance,” consisting of horror films in which parents play important parts, concludes June 28-29 with Brian De Palma’s Carrie.