It wasn’ bad. But I don’t need to see it again. It was a while ago, but I think I remember guessing the…twist? fairly early…my guess was…
The “monster” is the mom on her period.
I don’t remember if that was the case or not now though, and I’m not gonna rewatch it.
Blimey, did you watch the same film!? Didn’t get that at all. The monster was her grief and anger over losing her husband.
Zombie bump here. I just finished watching this movie, and good god, if you wanted to design a movie to freak my shit right out, this would be it. I watched it now because my wife & kids are out of town, so I’m loading up on all the movies my wife doesn’t want to watch, and horror movies with kids in danger is at the top of her NopeNopeNope list.
Before I was a parent, I coulda watched this no problem. Now? For the first time in a quarter century, I had to stop a movie halfway through to take a break.
I did not expect the ending:
I was fully convinced it would end with everyone dead
but thought they stuck the actual landing.
This, however:
has got to be the silliest movie analysis I’ve ever read in my life.
Good bump, I’ve been meaning to rewatch this. One thing that did occur to me later is that…
in “real life” (outside her imagination) her kid might not be nearly as annoying as he seems…it’s just every little thing is magnified by her own mental issues
Grief, like the Babadook, never really goes away. But as she points out, it does become quieter, less intrusive, and easier to manage.
You probably won’t see this - but I also saw Poltergeist around that age and it scared the bejeesus out of me. Seriously.
Ehhhhh… My read is that it’s a strain of mental illness that runs in the family…which is why the son is told that someday the Babadook will be his responsibility to deal with.
It may manifest or be triggered by the grief but the son isn’t going to experience that the same so that monster wouldn’t necessarily be his to deal with.
There’s another thing I haven’t seen discussed: the kid’s magic trick on his seventh birthday.
Making a coin appear? I believe it. Making a dove appear? For any normal kid, I’d think he was a prodigy of stage magic. For this kid, though? I’m thinking it may explain something: kid’s a fuckin wizard.
Through that lens–this kid has serious innate magical talent–the movie makes some sense. He’s sick with dread and insecurity over his mother’s grief and distance, and his own weirdness and consequent isolation. The children’s book manifests as the story of his insecurity–and when his mother doesn’t take him seriously then, he ends up unconsciously escalating things, manifesting both the monster and even maybe some of his own mother’s behavior.
Or maybe not. Maybe the mother’s lack of sleep and suppressed grief and resentment are responsible for nearly everything she does, except for her creepy glidy-movement as she moves in for the kill. The kid might imagine her moving that way, and create that movement.
In the end, he wants to be protected–and so when he sees his mother protecting him, that’s when he stops the monster’s terror, and makes it as small as he perceives his mother’s grief, and turns his talents to making coins and doves appear.
I enjoyed it, but I think if you’re coming to it having heard a lot of hype you’re likely to be disappointed.
The first act is brilliant and builds the tension well. The book’s wonderful.
Then the second and third acts it goes in an unexpected direction (trying not to give anything away), and while that’s great at first, it’s not enough to sustain half the movie IMO, so I did get a bit bored by the end.