Review of The Babadook (2014) by Lightningbarer — 01 Jan 2015

Honestly I don't get it sometimes, there are movies that are just meh, there are movies that are terrible and there are movies that just don't even try.

The Babadook isn't any of these things.

It's like two scripts were jammed together to make a full one because the writers of each didn't have the patience to try and write a full story.

Or they found that the idea of the movie is silly and couldn't write their way out of it.

This movie is a mess of bad writing, it's a hodge-podge of two separate stories, one of a person under a possession going insane and one of a person "thinking" they're under a possession and due to that, losing their mind.

It's right there in the visuals, we see things hinting that all of this is based on her delusions several times, there are hints that she may have already lost her mind and forgotten that she'd done something. There's no explanation for things and there's no "reason" for anything.

Take the book itself, it's sitting there on the kid's shelf and after reading it, the babadook comes calling.

How did it get there? Why is it that a kid who has night terrors and needs a book reading to him hasn't had this book read before? Are these things just there for no reason?

There are hints that this is all in her head and she can't remember doing things, for instance she's said to be an author and we see her hands dirty from what looks like charcoal. Is this implying she made the book, forgot and after destroying it, remade it and then forgot that?

See, no reason is given, now I'll commend this for the acting and the visuals, but that alone doesn't make a good movie. It's just Bad.