NOAH WISEMAN IN THE BABADOOK

A child's story book that turns into a haunting

This is an Australian movie (Jennifer Kent's debut feature) and the Australians are known for having a wild side, so though it's a conventional horror tale, it does ramp things up to a higher pitch. The premise is that into this single parent home with weird six-year-old son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) and harried mother Amelia (Essie Davis) there comes a really scary children's book that is more like a series of threats of a haunting. And the haunting comes. The "Babadook" invades the mother, who turns against the child. Things are complicated by the fact that the boy not only misses his dead father. His father died in a car accident that took place when he drove the mother Amelia to the hospital to give birth to the boy. And in the days leading up to the unearthing and reading of the fatal "Babadook" book, Samuel has been acting weirder and weirder, to the point where his school wants to separate him from the other students and have him taught and guarded by himself.

After reading the "Babadook" book, Amelia hurriedly puts it out of sight, because it has a threatening ending. Later, when the haunting begins, the banks and knocks and shakes, she rips up the book. And when they continue, she pours gasoline over the book and burns it. None of these attempts to still its power work, and the mother and the boy must go through a prolonged ordeal. Which you may share with them, if you choose. Though this is not up to the violence level to suit Saw fans, it will please those who like horror movies of a more cerebral but still vigorous kind. The sound effects are terrific.

The Babadook, 95 mins., debuted at Sundance, where it was well received and snapped up by IFC Midnight. Screened for this review as part of the FSLC-MoMA 2014 New Directors/New Films series, February 2014. US theatrical release IFC Center NYC Fri. 28 November 2014; also Internet. Reviewers greatly admire this well-crafted if monochromatic example of the horror genre, as revealed by its Metacritic rating: 83.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.