The Babadook (2014)

If you don't want to read it all:
Score: 7/10
Verdict: It's got a great story, but is not scary at all


Again, I am aware of the fact: it's really hard to make a good horror movie in the 21st century. It's almost impossible to scare the people nowadays, almost as hard as making them laugh so I really appreciate all who dare to try. So I do my best to watch as many horrors as I can, as a token of appreciation for... trying. I've heard of The Babadook from a trailer I saw on TV, which is a bit weird because I don't remember the last time I saw a horror movie trailer on TV. And I don't really watch nor like trailers in general since they never show the real thing. Then I found out it was funded by a Kickstarter campaign, so I really had to see this one.

So... The Babadook. Mister Babadook. The story is actually really good (if you can connect all the dots and realize what it is really about, which I am not going to say here) and it's a shame the movie itself fails to show its full potential. Even the acting is great, the characters are well portrayed and you can understand them pretty well almost right from the start. It's a story of a single mother and her 6 year old son who has big problems socializing with the world in general. He is obsessed with monsters and sees them everywhere, having a hard time fitting into school and making friends. Because of his constant fear, he is often awake at night and wakes up early in the morning, giving his mother a really hard time because she is constantly tired and lacking sleep. One day he brings a "children's" book called Mister Babadook for her to read for him and the book turns out to be... well, anything but children's. Soon, all he could talk about was Mr. Babadook which makes her try to destroy the book. Try.

Again, the story is REALLY good, but the movie's obvious lack of funds and a definite lack of imagination when it comes to scaring people (after all, this IS a horror movie and as such it MUST have scary scenes) makes it so much less enjoyable than it should be. Another problem with it is a somewhat slow start - it takes almost an hour for anything even remotely scary to happen. But if you don't mind the mild horror elements in it and if you like a good story that makes you think - you will like The Babadook. It seems as if the makers of this motion picture could not decide whether to make it a thriller or a horror, so they ended up somewhere in the middle. And that's the worst thing they could do.

As you can see, I am not even decided if I like The Babadook or not. And it seems like I am repeating myself. Well, watch it yourself and decide for yourself :)