Whether it is in a word or in a look you can't get rid of THE BABADOOK

Once in a blue Moon comes a movie that’s not only shatters genre conventions, also causes you to rethink the entire genre.  Last year one such movie was released, however, as it was a foreign film did not receive the due attention it deserved: The Babadook.

The Babadook is an Australian horror film released 2014 to almost unanimous critical acclaim, at least by those who saw it.  Unfortunately until its recent Netflix release the Babadook did not get a wide American release.  I strongly urge you to watch it now if you haven’t seen it, because I feel this movie is most benefited when one goes into it completely blind (spoiler alert). The movie itself focuses upon a mother and her son who have recently lost a father and husband. This grief manifests itself as the Babadook, a monstrous stop motion animated creature right out of a demented children’s book. The Babadook as a metaphor for grief is a far more effective and flawless metaphor then Godzilla as a metaphor for the dangers of nuclear energy. Throughout the course of the movie the mother character gets progressively more violent and insane as she isolates herself from her friends and family and denies her grief over her husband’s death. The son on the other hand reacts very much as a child would do in the same situation: he acts out and becomes protective over his mother. He begins creating devices and weapons to fight this monster that is manifested through his and his mother’s grief. 

However this movie is far more than simply an effective metaphor for being overcome by grief. It is also by far the scariest movie that I had ever seen. The tension is effectively maintained throughout the entire movie despite the fact the movies titular monster, the Babadook, does not make much of an appearance. This isn’t to say the movie shies away from showing its monster, because it really doesn’t. What the Babadook manages to do is to divorce the fear from the monster. What I mean by this is the monster itself is not really scary on it's own what is scary is what the monster represents. This is in direct contrast to monsters like Godzilla which made the subject of its metaphor scary by attaching it to a scary monster. So tension and fear are maintained through a thorough exploration of the frightening aspects of its metaphor, and not its monster. I think this is a far superior way to deliver a deeply disturbing and frightening experience to an audience.

Long story short, go see the Babadook; not only is it the greatest monster as metaphor story, but it is also the scariest horror movie in decades, if not ever.