by Brendan Foley
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
Trick Or Treat!
It’s Halloween, y’all! Well, October anyway. It’s our favorite time of the year here at Two Cents, because this is when we get to curate a list of seasonal delights to assault your eyeballs. Last year’s Trick Or Treat event resulted in some of the most fun discussions we’ve ever had on the column and we hope this year will yield more of the same! Here’s this year’s Trick Or Treat lineup! (Click the image to expand)
– Austin
The Pick
“If it’s in a word, or it’s in a book, Two Cents can’t get rid of the Babadook!”
No one can get rid of the Babadook it seems, as the indie Australian horror film has taken genre fans by storm and immediately enshrined itself in the hearts and minds of horror lovers. Funded in part by a Kickstarter campaign, The Babadook proved so impressive that William The Exorcist Friedkin dubbed it the scariest film he’d ever seen.
The debut film of writer-director Jennifer Kent, The Babadook grew from a 2005 short film by Kent, Monster. From those humble origins comes a film that has been hailed by many as a new classic of the genre, while others have dismissed the film as trading too often on familiar horror tropes.
The Two Cents squad decided to kick off our Halloween countdown with a visit with Mr. Babadook (dook dook dook). Is this a monster that is here to stay or should it be dumped into the basement?
– Brendan
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
Last year, Two Cents spent a night in hell under the Texas moon with Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This year, we’re continuing the tradition by sitting down with Hooper’s own controversial (but cultishly adored) hard left-turn sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
Join us as put metal to gristle and see what comes up! The film is available to watch for free on the Paramount Vault Youtube Channel.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
Our Guests
Nick Spacek:
The Babadook encompasses two of my least favorite horror tropes in one film. First, there’s the child in peril. Be it Cujo, Babadook, or otherwise, I will always sympathize more with the parent who has to put up with the kid than the frightened child itself. Nine times out of ten, I find myself rooting for whatever’s trying to kill the kid, as well. Seriously: a screaming, panicked kid that cannot be reasoned with is a terror far worse than any supernatural threat. That leads us to the second irritating trope, which is the fact that The Babadook would’ve been far more interesting a film had they just left the existence of the creature a mystery. Is it real? Is Amelia going crazy and trying to kill Samuel? Why purposefully answer the question when leaving it up to the audience is so much more fun? It’s much the same thing as Sinister, wherein there’s a demon that causes the kids to kill. The possibility that people are just inherently awful and death is random and unexplained seems a far darker concept than a boogeyman from some ancient past. Where’s that movie? Verdict: Trick (@nuthousepunks)
Trey Lawson:
The Babadook is part of a long tradition which locates horror within the family, and it is surprisingly effective at maintaining uncertainty as to where our sympathies should lie and what sort of film it is. Is it a Bad Seed? Terrible Parent? A story of possession? A haunting? The film somehow gets away with never making us choose. Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman deliver nuanced performances when both could easily have become caricatures, and the film is deeply unsettling even in its depiction of the most mundane aspects of domestic life. As for Mr. Babadook, it’s almost a shame that such a fantastic design is so seldom seen; yet to do so could easily have weakened the film. Robin Wood wrote of horror as the “return of the repressed.” From this perspective, the ending must either restore the status quo or take an apocalyptic turn. Without giving too much away, The Babadook seems to deliberately counter this notion, offering a smart ending that is neither apocalyptic nor a return to things as they were. Even if this weren’t one of the best horror films I’ve seen in years, it wouldn’t matter — YOU CAN’T GET RID OF THE BABADOOK. Verdict: Treat (@T_Lawson)
Jaime Burchardt:
Every bit of praise The Babadook has accumulated has been earned. Standing front and center are the performances by Davis and Wiseman. Their work is so strong that they should be considered landmarks in the genre. Every time one of them showed even a small facial gesture of despair or worry, it made my spine twist. Director Jennifer Kent sets it all up for them to shine, but she also used them as chess pieces in a one of the more methodical pieces of direction I’ve seen in recent memory. Set-up by set-up, her film chipped away at my armor, and by the time the finale came I was left defenseless. I felt its sheer power. The Babadook didn’t just want to scare me, it wanted to teach me a lesson. It wanted to show me an avenue of horror that walks the fine line between new and forgotten. By the time I composed myself (it truly did a number on me), The Babadook looked at me, and it seemed to say, as it did our leading characters, “I am your monster, and I’m not going away. Now what are you going to do about it?” Verdict: Treat (@jaimeburchardt)
Joshua Wille:
Spoiler alert: The Babadook is not all it’s cracked up to be. A year ago there seemed to be almost no escape from the chorus that proclaimed the unparalleled quality of The Babadook. Critics, journalists, and bloggers raved about it, and even the director of The Exorcist called it the scariest film he’d ever seen.
I didn’t think it was particularly scary. Moreover, it’s disappointing that The Babadook turned out to be not the thrilling, chilling supernatural monster movie I had read so much about, but a rather depressing psychological drama. I might have liked The Babadook more if it were not for the tidal wave of effusive praise that preceded its release and declared it a superior experience in horror. Were it not for this awesome reputation that haunts (or curses) The Babadook, I might have appreciated it as an experiment that subjectively explores fractured human psychology in the nail-biting style of a supernatural monster movie.
Plot spoilers can sometimes ruin a movie experience, but another kind of spoiler happens when film reviews and promotional material, even our own familiarity with film genres, shape our horizon of expectations about a film before we see it for ourselves. Thankfully, most spoilers are avoidable. All you have to do is not watch trailers or read film reviews. Don’t use the Web, Twitter, or Facebook, and don’t talk to your friends IRL. Watch no other movies and forget my comments in the preceding paragraphs. Verdict: Trick (@JoshuaWille)
The Team
Justin:
The Babadook is powerful, terrifying, an amazing feat for a directorial debut. The film has a maturity that is not common in debut works, in fact, a maturity that is not common from many filmmaking veterans either. This is a boogeyman story for the ages and Jennifer Kent struck gold with every decision and every shot of this film. It is truly a great film.
As a parent, the desire to protect my child is one of the strongest forces within me daily. Self-preservation takes a backseat when we worry about our kids. We’ll do anything to help them… anything to fix them, love them, protect them.
It is this very thing that struck such a nerve in me during this tale of grief, trauma, monsters, and, ultimately, family values. When Essie Davis’s Amelia cannot help her son fight against his delusions, her lack of care for herself leads to an emotional breakdown. Every parent can sympathize with feeling like this… feeling like we cannot help can cause one to cry out and emotionally break.
If for no other reason, this film is brilliant for Essie Davis’s performance alone… but there really is so much more. Verdict: A definite treat! (@thepaintedman)
Elizabeth:
The sterile, cool blues of the main set design in The Babadook is an early sign that all is not right in this house. Essie Davis made my list last year of favorite onscreen performances by women; she is stunning in this eerie movie. As the widow/frazzled mother Amelia, you easily sense how close to breaking she is. Her creepy young child Samuel — actor Noah Wiseman in his impressive feature film debut — blathers endlessly on about monsters and makes homemade weapons. So the first part of the movie, you worry that Samuel will hurt his mother… but then the babadook enters their fragile world and things get much worse.
I am not one to watch many scary movies, but I’ve now seen Jennifer Kent’s film twice of my own volition. The mother-young son relationship in The Babadook feels more real than anything you’ll see in a more saccharine Hollywood film. There is love between these family members, but there is also annoyance, frustration, and disbelief. This makes the film anything but formulaic. But can Amelia and Samuel survive the Baba-dook-dook-dook who stalks them… Verdict: Treat (@elizs)
Brendan:
Like The Haunting or The Shining before it, The Babadook is a genre exercise that ties the supernatural trauma inexorably into all-too real psychological turmoil. As played by Essie Davis (in a performance that needs to be seen to be believed) and Noah Wiseman, Amelia and Samuel are already operating under impossible amounts of woe, and that’s before a dandy demon starts stalking them via a pop-up book.
Davis is a horror heroine for the ages, but the real star of The Babadook is writer-director Jennifer Kent, making a debut that is as breathtakingly assured as any new work from an old master. From the pools of inky black that fill Amelia’s home to the sound design that digs beneath the skin and sets a horde of insects scuttling, there’s not a moment of the film without Kent’s assured hand steering you towards fear or emotional pathos.
The Babadook could easily have succeeded as a spookablast creature feature, but Kent digs deeper and uses her monster to explore the joy and horror of motherhood and family life. Heartbreaking and terrifying, The Babadook only improves the more you dig into it. Verdict: Treat (@TheTrueBrendanF)
James:
In a cinematic world where horror has been reduced to meaningless jump-scares and shock ‘n gore dull-fests, Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook is like a glimmer of eerie light in a cave full of guano.
Despite sounding like something Tony Soprano would cry out whilst servicing one of his many mistresses, The Babadook is primarily a compelling two-hander about parental anxiety, and an astute examination of grief and loss. The fact it’s wrapped up in some expertly-fashioned psychological horror trappings is almost secondary.
Both Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman as the mother and son slowly losing their minds as they’re stalked by the (imaginary?) Babadook are astonishingly good, delivering well-rounded, believable turns as actual human beings who aren’t always sympathetic. As the tension mounts, the mother and son’s increasingly isolated relationship becomes more antagonistic, grounded in a refreshing plausibility.
Although it’s a little hyperbolic to call The Babadook terrifying, it has some truly freaky moments (the lo-fi stop-motion VFX are particularly effective), rarely going for the cheap scare. And if the film’s marketers are canny enough, they’ll make a killing on the eventual book tie-in. Just don’t read it to your kids — because you never get rid of The Babadook. Verdict: Treat (@jconthagrid)
Frank:
Despite featuring one of the most annoying child actors in film history, The Babadook is a wildly creepy, atmospheric genre film that deserves to become a classic. With the actual monster of the title only mostly seen through the pages of a beautifully horrific children’s book, the Babadook becomes the very definition of psychological horror as struggling mother Amelia’s troublesome son Sam becomes uncontrollable to no end.
Like most movies of this sort, The Babadook is about something far deeper than something lurking in the shadows. Here, its the fear parenthood and not knowing how to cope when the weight of the world is on your shoulders. Going deeper still, it focuses on the idea of never having fully come to terms with the death of a loved one and how such an avoidance manifests itself.
Though shot in Australia, there’s nothing even remotely close to resembling the outback here. The Babadook is a grimly photographed film with dark, muted colors throughout. It may sound depressing, but the end result is nothing but hauntingly beautiful in this tale of facing fears and coming to grips. Verdict: Treat (@frankfilmgeek)
Austin:
I was quite taken with The Babadook. To me, the film worked as it was intended. I felt for the mother and her problematic child (I didn’t find him overly annoying — perhaps that’s a parental thing?), loved the creepy effects based on old-fashioned German expressionism, and found the Babadook appropriately menacing. Moreover, I felt the ending was left pretty ambiguous as to whether the bogeyman was real or imagined.
In addition to watching The Babadook, I also checked out its progenitor, Jennifer Kent’s creepy short film Monster. While told in shorthand and lacking the professionalism of the fully realized production, it’s pretty much the same story and framework, clearly showing that The Babadook had been developed, refined, and cultivated for at least a decade. Verdict: Treat (@VforVashaw)
The Verdict
Trick: 2 | Treat: 8
Verdict: Treat
More reading on The Babadook:
Ed’s Fantastic Fest Review
Brendan’s Theatrical Review
Did you all get a chance to watch along with us? Share your thoughts with us here in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook!