This was my alternate for the last film this year. I’m very impressed by it. I have the special edition blu ray. Just a great little film. I hope that you enjoy.
We start off with Amelia in what appears to be a car accident. Her husband is next to her, and she sees lights coming from the side. It was just a dream. Yes, her husband died in a car accident. Their son, Samuel, wakes her up, as he just had a bad dream. So he asks her to read him a bedtime story.
The next morning, she wants to show mom his monster defense, which results in breaking the window. This kid doesn’t listen too well. We see Amelia at work at like a nursing home. Robbie, her coworker flirts with her a bit. She gets a call from Sam’s school. He brought a dart and crossbow to school. The principal wants to try to put him in a different program, and she just wants to take him out of that school.
At the grocery store, Sam talks to some lady and says that his dad died while driving his mom to have him (Samuel). At the playground, Amelia talks to Claire about her daughter, Ruby, and Sam not having a joint birthday party. Claire doesn’t want to do it anymore. Sam keeps being loud and obnoxious. He falls. They come back home and see their neighbor Mrs. Roach, nice old lady.
Sam is overly concerned and has mom check for monsters and gets the book “Mister Babadook” out to read. It’s a creepy-ass book, I love it. She reads it, and Sam starts crying and screaming and being awful, again. You will probably dislike Samuel, or at the very least, be terribly annoyed with him. Once he falls asleep, mom watches some late-night TV, then goes upstairs to masturbate. She is about to cum, and Sam comes in screaming about the Babadook. Poor lady.
The next day, Sam tries to bring his catapult with him, Mom says no, and to not talk about The Babadook. Needless to say, Claire called up Amelia to get her there. Sam has been scaring Ruby with Babadook stories. This kid is such a dink, haha. He also wants to be a magician and scaring the poor dog. Robbie stops by to give mom flowers and Sam a birthday present. Sam is misbehaving, complaining about how she won’t let him have a dad. All of the father’s things are in the basement by the way. For dinner, she finds glass in the soup, Sam blame the Babadook. Haha.
She finds a picture of her husband with his face scribbled over. She confronts Sam, Sam wants to get his catapult, and he’s like, “Do you want to die” as he is ready to take on the Babadook. She hears a sound while downstairs, and goes up to find Sam hiding under his bed, totally freaked out. She tears up the Mister Babadook book out of frustration.
At Ruby’s party, Sam is there, and he is being a fussy bastard, and all the moms are a tad worried about him, and mostly her. The mom’s all talk and makes Amelia feel like shit. Amelia has had enough and gets snappy. Awesome. Sam hides out in the treehouse. Ruby tells him that it’s her treehouse. The kids are bantering, she is kinda mean, talks about how he’s not good enough to have a dad. Amelia is giving Claire the business for never coming by, and it’s because she can’t stand Sam. Sam shoves Ruby out of the treehouse. Clarie is pissed, flipped out. Amelia drives Sam home, he is busy kicking her seat, so annoying, and he is screaming. He then appears to see something and then has a seizure. The doctor says it was like a convulsion from the brain “overheating” so to speak. She asks him for something to help him or her. He agrees to give her some sedatives.
At night, Sam promises to protect her if she will protect him. She hears a knocking on the door, but nobody. Another knock, and on the ground is the reattached Mister Babadook book. So she goes and burns it in front of Sam. Mrs. Roach keeps bringing up Oscar, the dead husband/father), so Amelia is getting pissy.
At home, she notices bugs in the kitchen, and they are coming from a hole behind the fridge. Eww. She cleans up. 2 Prue and Warren show up, and they are like social services. She talks about the hole in the wall, but it’s gone. They think she is a little nutty. Basically, she has to register for a new school. Also, Sam comes down and says that he is gonna be sick.
Amelia looks across to Mrs. Roach’s place, see The Babadook. Sam scares her, and now it’s not there. Sam can’t get to sleep, so he gets to stay up and watch TV. She eventually reads him a bedtime story, and the power starts flickering. At night, her door opens, and she saw Babadook. She hears him say Bababdook, and he is on the ceiling and enters her. Well, she freaks the fudge out and wakes up Sam, and the dog is right with them. She sits down, watches TV, and it’s this creepy-ass black and white show with The Babadook and all kinds of crazy imagery.
She calls her boss, and she ain’t taking his guff. Sam is feeling sick from the sedatives again, and there’s no food in the fridge. Amelia is laying down and looks miserable. She asks why he has to keep talking. He apologizes, saying that he was just really hungry. She says “If you’re so hungry, why don’t you eat shit!”. That cracked me up. She apologizes to him in his room.
She crashes into a dude, just fucks his car up. She is looking worse and worse. Mrs. Roach is concerned. She is in the tub, fully dressed, and brings Sam in with her. She lays down in bed and had a violin, and Sam keeps bothering her, so she yells at him. She wakes up some crazy talk. She finds Sam on the phone with Mrs. Roach, he wants to spend the night. Amelia tells her that he was busy being disobedient. She yells at him for not listening to her about not talking to others. Amelia is losing her shit, she cuts the phone line, and she is screaming that nothing is getting in tonight. Sam just wants to be prepared to take on the Babadook.
She watches TV with Sam, she wakes up, sees him bloody, then she snaps to reality holding the knife, and he is fine. She grabs the dog, hold him a little too tight, so he barks at her and gives her the business. Hey, she just gave Sam a big bowl of ice cream. She goes back to watching TV, and she finds a news report about a lady who stabbed her son, and put his body in the basement and how he had just turned 7. She sees herself in the window.
Samuel tells her to wake up, but he is sleepwalking, right to the basement. She follows, and there’s Oscar, so she hugs him. He tells her that they can be together again, she just needs to bring him the boy. She backs away, and his voice changes and he keeps repeating “you can bring me the boy”. The electricity is flickering so much. She sees a shadow, and there is Mr. Babadook. Sweet!
She goes to her room and shuts the door on him, but he has other ways of getting in. Visually, this is awesome. It enters her again. Amelia is now downstairs watching some more creepy shit, the dog is barking at her. She looks at him and he cowers. She goes to the kitchen, kills the dog. How many is that this that I have to see a dog die? She then pulls one of her own teeth. Sam goes and hides in his room and locks her out. She tries to coercing him out. She is banging on the door, and kicking it. She gets in. Sam pisses himself, and she says that she wishes Sam had died and not Oscar. Holy shit, this is great. He tells her that she is not his mother. So he runs off.
He gets his crossbow and catapult and nails her with each. Then there’s a knocking at the door, it’s Mrs. Roach. She is just checking to make sure that Amelia is ok. She would do anything for Amelia. So mom tells Sam that she is sick and needs help. She wants to make it up to Sam. She wants him to meet his daddy, it’s nice there. SO Sam Stabs her in the leg, runs to the basement, trips her up, bangs her head, takes out one of her knees and ties her to the basement floor.
She is screaming at him, and he tells her how much he loves her. Sam gets close, and she starts strangling him. Before he passes out, she tosses him, and she starts shaking her head wildly. She then pukes out a large amount of black liquid. So they go to the main floor, she looks like hell, but normal. Sam is invisibly dragged up the stairs and against walls, and the bed starts shaking. Amelia asks “What do you want?”. We see Oscar again. He brings up only 10 more minutes till they get there. Half of his head slides off diagonally. We hear the growling, she says “You’re nothing”. She says that it is trespassing in her house. If it touches her son again, she will fucking kill it. We then see the suit, and it falls to the ground. It is still making noise though. So she goes up to it and touches the hat. Well, it’s pissed and flies to the basement. Amelia follows and locks the basement door.
The next day, it’s nice out. Sam was visiting Mrs. Roach, and Amelia stops by and they talk about the party. Prue and Warren stop by, and Amelia says that she thinks the new school will be just fine. Haha, the conversation was great. Sam is so matter of fact with how he handles himself. Sam has dug up some worms and put them in a bowl. She tells Sam to play outside until she tells him that it’s ok. She goes downstairs with the bowl, sets it on the ground, and yes, she is feeding the Babadook. It sounds pissed, but she calms it down. So it takes the bowl into its dark side of the room, and she just backs away. Sam says that it’s getting much better now. Sam has a new magic trick for her, and he makes a coin appear in his hands and then put the coin under a lid and turns it into a pigeon. Everybody is all lovey and smiles.
End Film
To me, this is a horror masterpiece. I really loved the ambiance, the tone of the film. Sam grates on your every last nerve, and he’s supposed to. I know this isn’t for everyone, but this worked on every level for me. I especially loved the book. It’s so great. Unfortunately, it’s not for sale, but the special edition blu ray does have this.
Final rating: 7.8
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- Screen Australia (presents)
- Causeway Films (presents)
- The South Australian Film Corporation (in association with)
- Smoking Gun Productions (in association with)
- Entertainment One (in association with)
Please go find a copy and support the creators.