The Babadook (2014)

Horror, Drama, Thriller

Director: Jennifer Kent
Writer: Jennifer Kent
Starring: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Hayley McElhinney, Daniel Henshall

"If it's in a word. Or it's in a look. You can't get rid of ... The Babadook"

The debut feature of Australian actress-turned-filmmaker Jennifer Kent is a chilling horror that turns out to be one of the best to come out in the recent years.

The story centers around Amelia, a stressed single mother who is dealing with the erratic and difficult behavior of her troubled young son Sam. Out of nowhere, they come across a creepy pop-up book about a the bat-like "Mister Babadook," a top-hatted shadow monster who comes into your house and scares you. They soon realize that it’s not just a nice children's story book, and in reading it aloud, the things depicted are going to make it come true.

Based on a short made earlier by Kent called Monster, The Babadook is a well-made horror that relies more on psychological terror than the blood and gore or the cheap jump scares we see in most of the genre films these days, and definitely delivers when it comes to scaring its viewers.

Plot summary from IMDb: Amelia, who lost her husband in a car crash on the way to give birth to Samuel, their only child. She struggles to cope with her fate as a single mom. Samuel's constant fear of monsters and violent reaction to overcome the fear doesn't help her cause either, which makes her friends become distant. When things can not get any worse, they read a strange book in their house about the 'Babadook' monster that hides in the dark areas of their house. Even Amelia seems to feel the effect of Babadook and desperately tries in vain to destroy the book. The nightmarish experiences the two encounter form the rest of the story.(show more)

Awards: 40 wins & 52 nominations.
Runtime: 93 min
NOT R