The Ohio Sci-Fi and Horror Marathons

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"If you have GHOSTS you have Everything" - Papa Emeritus II GHOST B.C.

I brought this over from the Horror Movie Wish List Thread:



I was luke warm on The Babadook, I really liked the idea and the "creature" they created was creepy and fun however I just wished it had attached itself to a family I actually cared about.

I realize we are dealing with shadow archetype but you still need to be able to connect with the main characters on some level and I never did connect with anyone in this film. About 30 Minutes in a was praying the Babadook would hurry up and kill these people and move on to another family or victim.

I almost instantly started comparing The Babadook to Session 9, my first thought was The Babadook looks for victims that are weak and prime for possession, but as the story unfolded it was becoming more and more obvious that "The Babadook" doesn't exist and this is all in the mothers mind.

I guess it could be explained on a more supernatural plain that "The Babadook" was really the father and he was into dark magic and he took over his sons body (think SKELETON KEY) and his son was banished to the basement where the mother buries her past.

If The Babadook ever plays at the marathon I hope it plays early in the lineup since a large portion of the plot deals with the main character being sleep deprived, this would not keep people awake at 3am.

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"If you have GHOSTS you have Everything" - Papa Emeritus II GHOST B.C.

I quite liked BABADOOK, but, some of the praise it got was ridiculous (there is some of that with the current IT FOLLOWS as well. People are so starved for a smart intelligent horror film that anything above average seems to get praised to the skies).

I would disagree with your first point. Films like PSYCHO, BEDLAM and REPULSION are usually considered "horror films" and they have much less 'supernatural' content than THE BABADOOK. One great thing about the horror genre is that they are able to take the 'ordinary' world into some very extraordinary places in the mind.

As to the second point. I believe that much of the reason that the ending feels both "correct" and "disappointing" is that the construction seems off. The first third of the movie leads you to believe you are watching a BAD SEED/OMEN type story centered on the boy. To those who say the shift in focus from the son to the mom is totally consistent, I disagree. IF the whole movie is from the Mom's POV and the son's Bad Seed-like behavior can be explained away as largely in the Mom's head, then WHY those scenes where the Mother isn't even present and the boy acts up? I guess you could get doubly complex and say the son acts that way because the Mom treats him as a bastard child, but, that is too cute by half. It's a quibble, but, a significant one I have with the movie. The movie began as a short, and the seams show in that expansion.

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Long Live the Orson Welles Cinemas

To me, the Babadook was a metaphor for the negative thoughts and feelings, especially towards her child, that came into the mother's mind as a result of her husband's death. Mothers harboring simultaneous feelings of love and hate for their children in the wake of traumatic or life-altering events is common (see: postpartum depression). Even though logically she knows it's not true, part of her subconsciously blames her child for her husband's death, because he died while they were in the car on the way to the hospital while she was in labor with him. These negative feelings towards her child were exacerbated when he became troubled and started acting out--and who can blame a child for doing so when being raised by a single mother after the traumatic death of his father? The movie purposely invokes the tropes of The Omen and other "possessed children" movies, but something much closer to everyday life was happening - the child was acting as some troubled children do, and the "possession" of blame, guilt and frustration was festering in the mother instead. In the end, it was the love of her child that saved her. When a traumatic event causes a dark psychological tumor, you can either deny that it's there and try to run from it (like she does for most of the movie), or face it head-on. And while you can never truly get rid of it ("If it's in a word or in a look, you can't get rid of the Babadook"), you can acknowledge that it's a part of yourself, a dark mood that you will revisit occasionally because you're only human (see: her going down to the basement to feed it). But ultimately, it's the love and the good things you still have in your life, despite the trauma you experienced, that will keep it from taking you over completely.

That's what it meant to me at least. If you couldn't tell, I really liked this movie, haha.

I disagree with the Babadook not being real. While The Babadook IS meant as a metaphor (which comicbookgirl19 explained BEAUTIFULLY), I also think that the Babadook was absolutely real and was not in the mother's head at all. As far as The Babadook and It Follows getting too much praise, I also disagree with that. I haven't seen any film with the creepy visuals that The Babadook has. I mean, just LOOK at the Babadook himself!! He is a SCARY bastard! LOL The reason why It Follows is so popular is because not only is it a borderline horror comedy at times, poking fun at the popular horror trope that "no matter how fast a person in a horror film runs, the killer can always catch up just by walking", but also, the movie manages to do SOOO MUCH with so little, feeling like an old school horror film from the 70's or 80's with a very simple, basic premise, with the addition of the AMAZING!!!!!!!!! soundtrack by DisasterPeace!

Just like with The Thing From Another World, The Evil Dead and Mama, The Babadook was inspired by a short story. Here it is. Grab some popcorn and enjoy!

http://moviepilot.com/posts/2014/09/03/ ... ok-2245506