[dropcap]A[/dropcap] little horror film, and first feature for director Jennifer Kent, out of Australia called The Babadook has been causing rumblings in the genre since it debuted at Sundance this year. Some top critics are touting it as revolutionary, generically and for women in film, but their claims are effusive, if not premature.
In The Babadook, a single mom (Essie Davis) coping with the tragic loss of her husband tries desperately to manage the behavioral problems and overactive imagination – or so it seems – of her son (Noah Wiseman). After reading to him from a disturbing bedtime story called “Mister Babadook,” bizarre things start to occur, the kid is convinced the Babadook is real, and their behavior grows more erratic by the day.
William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, called it the scariest movie he has ever seen, while others are saying Kent is the best horror director ever. Cutting through the raving, Babadook doesn’t offer anything terribly unique. For starters, the whole mother-child thing has been done in one form or another since, at least, Psycho – and most recently in Annabelle.
It is hard to view the film without feeling it’s derivative. Toward the end, Essie Davis becomes possessed by the spirit of the Babadook, coming close to killing her child – something very familiar to anyone who saw The Conjuring. In other cases, overused tropes are borrowed from Japanese horror (like when the Babadook stalks Essie over the phone).
However, as played out as a few elements are, Jennifer Kent clearly uses them out of love. She shows us she is a serious horror fan, and does what any, from Tarantino to John Landis, would as a filmmaker: put in clips from cult classics of the last century (from Lon Chaney in Phantom of the Opera to Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath), which Davis’s character watches on TV, and replays in her nightmares.
While it is refreshing to see another female horror director, especially one who has a dark vision and a referential spirit, the best thing for Kent here is the hype around her, which is making her a name – and should generate buzz for her next project. By then, she ought to have any kinks worked out. For now, The Babadook is a good first effort but not groundbreaking, or anything you should drive 50 miles out of state to see.
