Movie: Babadook

  A tense Australian supernatural horror film or one woman's psychotic episode with a little folie a deux thrown in, I watched Babadook.

  There is a lot of debate, or at least some debate, as to if this movie is about some kind of Aussie boogeyman or if its just the diary of a madwoman whose psychosis spills over onto her imaginative and bug eyed son.  The final determination is left somewhat up in the air at the finale but lets break it down.

  The movie starts out with a harried single mother and her hyper active son, who loves magic and crafting makeshift weaponry reminiscent of the arsenal of the lost boys in hook (1991).  Moving forward it is revealed that the father/husband was killed driving the protagonist to the hospital to give birth, that the mother was a childrens author (CLUE), and that the young lads increasingly rambunctious behavior, inclusive of bringing a homebrew crossbow to school, has led to him being kicked out of school.

  Soon the young lad, in between magic tricks and presumably making a pipe bomb while waiting to develop the writing skills to draft a manifesto, finds a book of unknown origin.  Here we find the Babadook, who knows where this, rather well done, pop up book of creepy rhymes and menace came from, as if placed, half finished in the home by some deranged childrens author.

  More sinister happenings, insects, things going bump in the night, seat jumpers here and there leading up to the mother going mad because Babadook and then black vomit.  The black vomit trope is becoming a staple of the killer mother genre of supernatural horror, representing some internalized evil and not say, yellow fever or too many jelly beans.

   Self exorcism leads to confrontation and eventual resolution with the happy family feeding garden pests to the Babadook which now resides in the basement and needs soothing like some Edwardian dukes two headed offspring who means well but just pets the spaniels just too darn hard.  Oh also the breaks the dogs neck, in case they felt worried about missing the beat about killing the family pet to show you just how far shes gone.

  If we take the tack that this is a true supernatural horror and there is a babadook, its pretty solid.  A number of jump scares, but not the constant monster closets of some lazy horror films.  Plenty of tense moments and good old fashion creepy sound elements BAAABAAAA DOOK DOOK DOOK.. 

  The resolution leads us to believe that under the tophat and coat was something else, something the mother felt was worth protecting and now she is nurturing it in the basement.  leaving us with the image of the happy suburban modern family with a dark supernatural horror lurking behind some deadbolts in the basement, and for once not in Maine.

  However if you look at it as the tale of a woman whose personal loss never healed and whose troublesome son has caused her to fall into a psycotic break and take her son with her, the movie is very different, and i think, much better.
 
  The constant tension built up in the middle part of the movie starts the become more oppressive and claustrophobic when the enemy is not some specter in a top hat, but rather life in general and this woman's inability to cope or accept any kind of support.  The protagonist does a great job of making you feel like you haven't slept either and that the walls of her house and closing in on her.  Each creepy sight or sound is much more malevolent when you consider that its coming from inside her rather than some outside threat.

  The young lad, after nearly killing his mother with a basement attack part goonies part home alone, participates fully in his mothers delusions.  Eventually it comes to a head when she rejects and confronts the Babadook, seeing it for what it "really" is.

  I had heard once that there was a psychological component to the ritual of exorcism.  That possesion was a mental disorder and the long process of prayer and spritzing leads to a catharsis, mimicking a demon leaving the body.
 
  In this case, without some priests or a southern woman with dwarfism to assure her the demon was gone and her house was clean, the womans delusion, that now lives in the basement, is reinforced by her son who may help her keep it going for years.