What we have is a very small, intimate movie about a woman and her son. The woman, Amelia, was widowed after a car crash that happened as her husband was driving her to the hospital to give birth to their son. Years later, she is still haunted terribly by the event. She doesn't sleep very much at all and she is suffering deep psychological issues. Amelia is an extremely disturbed person. Her son, Sam, is also disturbed. He lashes out at people, acts up in school, and is a handful 24/7. Sam rarely sleeps either as he is deathly afraid of monsters, and his mom goes around every night looking under his bed and in the closet to ease his mind that monsters are not lurking, waiting for him to go to sleep.
Amelia and Sam live an isolated life. People don't like to be around them because of Sam's bad behavior and Amelia's constant melancholic state. As part of their nightly ritual Amelia reads bedtime stories to Sam, and one day he comes across a book he would like her to read to him. The book is titled "The Babadook." She doesn't understand where this book came from but she begins to read it to Sam. What we discover is The Babadook is a boogeyman that comes in the night, looking like a shadow person or a hat man. What was already a highly stressful and troubled existence in the household now takes a turn straight down the highway to Hell.
I laid out the setup for anyone that may be interested, but if you want to know what happens you will have to watch it yourself.
The Babadook is an interesting story. Although categorized as a horror movie, it is a different kind of horror really. A psychological horror, dealing with many emotional issues and mental conditions. There are many levels to this story and many questions are left unanswered. For instance, at one point it is mentioned that Amelia use to be a writer of children's things and I kept wondering whether she was the author of The Babadook book.
This is a film that is not fun. It is disturbing on an emotional level. Are the main characters truly being haunted or are they crazy? Or being slowly driven crazy by their sleep deprived lives? There is no silly slasher movie type goofiness going on here. This movie is well acted and well directed. I give this a high recommendation, just know going in that this is dark cinema.
