{"id":1634,"date":"2015-06-14T13:58:17","date_gmt":"2015-06-14T17:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=1634"},"modified":"2026-10-07T12:57:49","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T16:57:49","slug":"the-babadook-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=1634","title":{"rendered":"The Babadook-2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Babadook-2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Jennifer Kent<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Essie Davis<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #247<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"70300205\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed June 14, 2015<\/p>\n

Grade: B<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Babadook (2014) is an Australian (English-language) psychological horror film about a mysterious, haunted book that torments its owner or owners.<\/p>\n

Touted as one of the scariest films of 2014, I kindly beg to differ, though admittedly the film does contain some genuine frights and jumps.<\/p>\n

What happened to the horror genre, where frightening films haven’t been made since the 1970s?<\/p>\n

Exceptions like The Conjuring (2008) deserve mention.<\/p>\n

The Babadook tries to be scary without CGI or extravagant effects, but it has a classic feel.<\/p>\n

Amelia, the mother in the story, has tragically lost her husband, Oskar, in a terrible car crash on the way to the hospital to give birth to her son Samuel.<\/p>\n

Now six years old, Samuel begins to exhibit signs of psychological problems as he becomes terrified of an imaginary monster.<\/p>\n

After a children’s book, Mr. Babadook mysteriously appears in their home, and Amelia reads it to Samuel; even stranger events occur throughout their house.<\/p>\n

The film has remnants of The Sixth Sense (1999)- a loner, bullied kid is haunted, and a disbelieving single mom follows along as a ghost story, and questions of who is alive or dead are explored.<\/p>\n

The father, Oskar, is instrumental in the storytelling. Because of this, the viewer is often confused throughout, but that is not necessarily a knock on The Babadook.<\/p>\n

It is not exactly clear to me if Amelia is the central character or if that honor belongs to Samuel- the interesting part of the film is the relationship between mother and son.<\/p>\n

The Babadook is a scary story. Can a book come to life and haunt? So says the film and that is worth thinking about.<\/p>\n

In horror, there can be some ridiculous premise that is so unrealistic it cannot even be fathomed.<\/p>\n

Where the film suffers in my view is that it is not that<\/strong> <\/em>scary. Having something jump out at you or some other surprise is nice, but where is the terror? The exact motivations of the book also remain unclear.<\/p>\n

I admire The Babadook for attempting to bring back old-school horror to modern audiences and telling a solid, haunting story.<\/p>\n

However, the film did not quite measure up to the hype surrounding it.<\/p>\n

The great film reviews are a bit much as I do not believe The Babadook (2014) is quite on the level of one of the scariest films ever made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Babadook-2014 Director Jennifer Kent Starring Essie Davis Scott’s Review #247 Reviewed June 14, 2015 Grade: B The Babadook (2014) is an Australian (English-language) psychological horror film about a mysterious, haunted book that torments its owner or owners. Touted as one of the scariest films of 2014, I kindly beg to differ, though admittedly the … Continue reading The Babadook-2014<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1147,13,11782],"tags":[12840,3380,4637,12839,4636,12838],"class_list":["post-1634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2014-films","category-australian","category-horror-films","category-psychological-horror","tag-ben-winspear","tag-daniel-henshall","tag-essie-davis","tag-hayley-mcelhinney","tag-jennifer-kent","tag-noah-wiseman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1634"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24739,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634\/revisions\/24739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}