The Babadook (2014)
Country: AUS/CAN
Technical: col/2.35:1 93m
Director: Jennifer Kent
Cast: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Hayley McElhinney
Synopsis:
A mother whose husband was killed on the way to the hospital where her son was born, finds it difficult to adjust to her bereavement and embrace her offspring. This in turn leads to behavioural problems in the child, and when she finds a children's pop-up book called Mister Babadook, the stage is set for a terrifying working out of all her repressed grief and rage.
Review:
An unsettling film, which takes adults back to their most basic childhood fears while at the same time investigating the destructive power of grief over those who survive. What is interesting is how the mother begins by being the protectress, but then cedes this role to the boy in the second half. The suburban location is familiar from countless other stories of the uncanny or the possessed, and some of the scenes do wear their antecedents rather weakly, but for most of its running time this is a sustained rattling of the nerves, with more hair-prickle moments than a handful of your run-of-the-mill creepers. Formally it is a masterstroke, with the black and white artwork of the titular book perfectly echoed in the chiaroscuro of the house and its furnishings, and Davis does a spectacular job of shuttling between the Duvall and Nicholson roles in The Shining.
Country: AUS/CAN
Technical: col/2.35:1 93m
Director: Jennifer Kent
Cast: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Hayley McElhinney
Synopsis:
A mother whose husband was killed on the way to the hospital where her son was born, finds it difficult to adjust to her bereavement and embrace her offspring. This in turn leads to behavioural problems in the child, and when she finds a children's pop-up book called Mister Babadook, the stage is set for a terrifying working out of all her repressed grief and rage.
Review:
An unsettling film, which takes adults back to their most basic childhood fears while at the same time investigating the destructive power of grief over those who survive. What is interesting is how the mother begins by being the protectress, but then cedes this role to the boy in the second half. The suburban location is familiar from countless other stories of the uncanny or the possessed, and some of the scenes do wear their antecedents rather weakly, but for most of its running time this is a sustained rattling of the nerves, with more hair-prickle moments than a handful of your run-of-the-mill creepers. Formally it is a masterstroke, with the black and white artwork of the titular book perfectly echoed in the chiaroscuro of the house and its furnishings, and Davis does a spectacular job of shuttling between the Duvall and Nicholson roles in The Shining.
Country: AUS/CAN
Technical: col/2.35:1 93m
Director: Jennifer Kent
Cast: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Hayley McElhinney
Synopsis:
A mother whose husband was killed on the way to the hospital where her son was born, finds it difficult to adjust to her bereavement and embrace her offspring. This in turn leads to behavioural problems in the child, and when she finds a children's pop-up book called Mister Babadook, the stage is set for a terrifying working out of all her repressed grief and rage.
Review:
An unsettling film, which takes adults back to their most basic childhood fears while at the same time investigating the destructive power of grief over those who survive. What is interesting is how the mother begins by being the protectress, but then cedes this role to the boy in the second half. The suburban location is familiar from countless other stories of the uncanny or the possessed, and some of the scenes do wear their antecedents rather weakly, but for most of its running time this is a sustained rattling of the nerves, with more hair-prickle moments than a handful of your run-of-the-mill creepers. Formally it is a masterstroke, with the black and white artwork of the titular book perfectly echoed in the chiaroscuro of the house and its furnishings, and Davis does a spectacular job of shuttling between the Duvall and Nicholson roles in The Shining.