The Babadook - 27/10/2014
"If it's in a word, or in a look
You can't get rid of the Babadook"
Made on a budget of just over $30k via a kickstarter project, Jennifer Kent's re-imaging of her short movie "Monster" is a damn good case for how good a film can be without over the top special effects.
6 years after her husband was killed taking his labour induced wife to the hospital, Amelia is struggling to raise her son. Plagued by fears of monsters in his room, sleep deprivation is having a massive effect. When the son asks Amelia to read him a new bed time story called Mister Babadook, things start to get worse. With even less sleep and her son becoming more and more delusional, this seems to project towards his mother.
With no crash bang scares and loud violin screeches, The Babadook goes back to real horror, it stays away from cheap scares and gore, real horror rather than jump scares. There were several points in this film I actually felt scared. Is the Babadook a real entity or a figment of a delusional, sleep deprived mind? the Babadook can be viewed from many different angles which is what made it more enjoyable for me.
At first I was thinking that the child actor was a little annoying and not very good, but as the film progressed I actually think he is a little insane and they did deprive him of sleep, terrify him and then asked him to act the scene again, he looks truly terrified throughout.
This is a lesson for all the big budget horror film producers out there (especially you Mr Bay and Platinum Dunes), that horror can be done well without the big effects and cheap scares. The human mind is a scary thing that can conjure up it's own scary ideas that will always be more personally scary to each individual.
For all the horror movie fans and people looking for a good scare this Halloween, go watch The Babadook, but don't let him in.
Baba-ba Dook Dook Dook
No comments:
Post a Comment