Review of The Babadook (2014) by Viewer — 08 Feb 2015

A film that mixes tired horror devices, pseudoscience, and some of the sexist and perverse aspects of modern Feminism that everyone seems to be warming up to these days, into a hot, steaming pot of cream of glass soup, or black vomit, or sh*t—take your pick.

Watching this film was a sickening experience made all the more sickening by its critical acclaim. Also, despite the fact that many (presumably blind and deaf) critics state that this film does not rely on jump scares, .

. . it kinda does. Yes, the film also employs stale psychological thriller tactics to try to scare you, but that doesn't just erase the jump scares, nor does it make it an innovative or scary film; all that does is make it a film that tries and fails to scare you with two standard genre tactics in a very predictable way.

Think of this movie as an un-scary, un-atmospheric "The Shining," meets every jump-scare horror film with a child and a monster, meets every modern possession film. My theory as to why this movie received critical acclaim is that the critics were so tired of dissing stale horror films that they physically couldn't do it anymore due to severe nausea and were compelled to give it a positive review—that or the Babadook possessed them.