Don't Miss It: 2010's Best Horror With 98% on RT Leaves Netflix in January
It is a horror movie that you can not afford to miss.
From the outside, it may seem that the horror genre is extremely easy to master – just fill the screen with gallons of ketchup or build suspense with a picture darkened to the point of indecipherability and suspenseful music – but this is not so.
If only because fear is a rather private and intimate thing, and it is by definition impossible to make a movie that would scare everyone without exception.
And that is why horror films whose creators not only brilliantly work out the mechanisms of the genre, but also manage to raise more acute, more general and more profound questions at the same time, arouse not only interest, but genuine admiration.
And that is why The Babadook is one of the most important horror films of the last decade.
What Is The Babadook About?
Amelia became a mother and a widow in one day – on the way to the hospital, the car in which she and her husband were riding had an accident. Years have passed since then, and Amelia's son is already in school, but everyone around him sees him as a troubled boy. This is not surprising, as Sam is obsessed with monsters and easily loses control of himself.
One day, the boy asks his mother to read him a book at bedtime about the Babadook, a monster that hides in the dark corners of rooms and makes people do terrible things. Since then, Sam has been losing his mind, and with him, Amelia is slowly going mad – she too is starting to see the Babadook.
The Babadook Is Not Your Typical Horror Movie
The Babadook is constructed in such a way that behind the outer layer – a classic "boogeyman horror story" terrorizing an already troubled family – there is a hidden second layer, an allegorical drama about a widow who cannot let go of her long-dead husband.
Amelia does not celebrate her son's birthdays, she is cold to him and unconsciously blames him for the death of her loved one. She has no relationships with men, and any mention of her husband causes Amelia to have fits of irritation and aggression.
The Babadook Talks about Many Psychological Issues at Once
The film's writer-director, Jennifer Kent, uses the character of the Babadook to push these feelings to the limit, to make them hypertrophic, but at the same time to make them understandable and recognizable.
And this is a rare case in which an inexperienced creator manages to achieve such clarity and transparency while avoiding intrusiveness and tension.
It has it all – repressed pain and forced early adulthood, and alternately tormenting resentment and guilt, and all of this is unusually naturally woven into the formula of mystical horror.
The highest level of skill in this sense is the final scene, which becomes an exhaustive epilogue to any story of overcoming tragedy and beginning a new life.
The Babadook Is Leaving Netflix
Hurry up to watch The Babadook on Netflix – the movie will be leaving the platform on January 26.