Face-Off: The Babadook vs. The Witch

Essie Davis turns in a fantastic and very real performance as Amelia Vanek, an overworked single mother who can’t get any “me time”, isn’t getting enough sleep, and is stressed out to the point of a mental breakdown. For much of the movie you’ll be wondering if there really is a creature called the Babadook manipulating the events in the Vanek household or if the demands of Amelia’s life have pushed her over the edge. You sympathize with her at first, but as her mental state crumbles she becomes effectively unnerving and you begin to worry about what sort of terrible acts she might be capable of. Davis plays both sides of the character perfectly.

In the first couple scenes of THE BABADOOK, you might expect Amelia’s six-year-old son Samuel to be a pretty cool kid – he wants to do magic tricks and says he’ll smash the head of any monster that tries to mess with him. He even builds his own weapon to use against monsters. But then you see that Samuel is exceptionally needy, which is understandable since his father died in a car accident while driving Amelia to the hospital when she was in labor with him, and prone to screaming fits, which is maddening. How well you can handle watching this kid’s behavior may be the deciding factor in whether you like or hate this movie, but he does get more tolerable toward the end, when we have to be concerned that Amelia might hurt him.

The Babadook enters the lives of the Vaneks when Samuel finds a pop-up book on his shelf called Mister Babadook. What seems to be a cute kids’ story quickly turns so scary that Amelia tears up the book and throws it out. But it shows up on their front step soon after, with more violent illustrations added in. Illustrations of Amelia doing awful things. From that point on, the Babadook seems to not only be lurking in the closets and shadows of the Vanek house, but also controlling Amelia’s actions, giving her twisted hallucinations and gradually turning her mean and dangerous. Or maybe there’s no Babadook, maybe Amelia has gone mad. If there is a Babadook, it’s quite a nefarious creature that could turn a mother against her child.

For much of its first half, THE BABADOOK largely functions as a drama that allows us to get to know Amelia and Samuel, digging into their lives, showing their struggles, giving us an idea of how stressed out Amelia is. There are hints at horror to come, though, and the second half of the film fully descends into that dark, twisted horror. Amelia and Samuel rarely leave the house as they’re tormented by the presence of the supernatural evil creature and Amelia’s behavior spirals out of control. No matter how annoying Samuel has been, it’s still troubling to watch a mother become angry and violent, and because of the dramatic stretch up front we’re more invested in what’s going on with the characters as things fall apart.

THE BABADOOK is out to disturb you more than it is out to make you jump, but you might get a jolt from it here and there. Most of these jolts come when the Babadook reveals his presence to characters rather than when he’s getting under their skin and into their heads. In one scene the creature is seen crawling on Amelia’s bedroom ceiling and lunging down toward her, in another it seems to be riding on top of her car, thumping on the roof. I think even the jumpiest person could probably handle these moments in stride.