The Babadook (2014)

Somehow I had thought of this Australian horror as a potential companion piece to A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, probably just because it happened to be out around the same time, but it so happens that both are the first features of female directors. TB has the distinction of a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and a rather middling 6.9 on IMDb. I think I know why, but first, as usual, a synopsis:

After seven years, Amelia still isn't dealing well with widowhood. Her son Samuel (born the day her husband died) adds to her stress in many ways: always speaking his mind, practicing dangerous magic tricks and stunts, and believing in -- and preparing for -- monsters. The last behavior becomes more pronounced after she reads to him from The Babadook, an alleged children's book of mysterious origin, about a sort of bogeyman named for his distinctive style of knocking at the door. As the days pass, it gets increasingly hard for Amelia to dismiss Samuel's fears as unfounded....

I had expected this to be a family-friendly horror, insofar as such a thing exists (see Poltergeist). You might just argue that it is, since no human characters die or get permanently mutilated in the present. But Amelia does swear significantly a few times and uses a vibrator in one scene, possibly to increase a sense of vulnerability. Details like these make me a little uneasy about the very making of some films, since real children get an unseemly education in the process. Mercifully, in this case, an adult on his knees stood in for Samuel's child actor during the darker moments.

For about the first third, I felt more sympathy than dread. Nothing in Amelia's life comes easily to her anymore. Even her day job looks worse than most. Samuel can be so embarrassing, noisy, and uncooperative that I admire her restraint in not slapping him. I suspect that the Babadook feeds on her annoyance on multiple counts.

Despite the above, I wound up more afraid than I was during any other movie I've viewed in the last... however many years. I guess William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, wasn't kidding with his superlative praise. It's tough to explain. Maybe it just does a great job of tapping into the terror of our inner children, not least while Amelia lies in bed and senses what she shouldn't. Who knew that an extra short, monochrome, rhyming, mock-friendly pop-up book could be too scary to finish out loud? Or that it would be about ten times as scary later, when it promises a demonic possession?

Now for my theory on the relatively low IMDb rating: Some viewers don't like the resolution. Once Amelia and Samuel figure out how to deal with the Babadook, it seems too easy and insipid. (Never mind that many traditions hold that certain demons can be foiled by ridiculous means.) And while the two don't exactly come away unscathed and the threat isn't utterly gone, they do wind up apparently happier than they were at the beginning, if only because a crisis drew them together. Alternatively, the naysayers might want more originality, but how much of that can you find in the whole genre?

Director Jennifer Kent adamantly refuses to allow a sequel. I commend her for that, as well as for making a solid fright fest in the first place.