Post by BloodyMonkeyZ on Jul 1, 2015 12:57:11 GMT -6
If you haven't yet heard about this movie, you must not be engaged in any sort of online horror community. If you haven't yet seen this movie, you must have been like me: Uncertain whether any film could live up to the ridiculous amount of hype this film has garnered over the last year. Starting off my review, I shall paraphrase the immortal bard whose works have not only survived for hundreds of years, but have lived up to the hype. Shakespeare.
I come not to praise Babadook, but to bury it.
Part of me taking my time with watching this film is that I try and ground myself before watching anything. I find a way to block out all the hype and watch it purely based on what I am seeing. Strip away all the glowing reviews and see what remains. For me, not much remained. But before I run it through the shredder, let me give a story rundown. A mother to a young boy, about 7, lost her husband in a car accident. The boy is having problems dealing with the whole not having a father thing. It is alienating both him and his mother from all their friends. He is convinced there are monsters and only he can fight them. And then a real monster shows up in their lives challenging mother and son while also pitting them against each other. That is the quick story overview.
Now for the in depth discussion. While there are more than 2 people in this story, it is essentially a 2 actor play. The mother and the son. For the first 10 minutes or so of the movie, we see a terrible brat of a child that even I (as a father of 3) couldn't stand. It is no wonder they are alienated, his actions are incredibly bad. He constantly acts out, and tells stories of monsters to his peers, scaring them to no end. At this point in the movie we are rather sympathetic to the plight of the mother. But then the mother starts reacting horribly to her son. Calling him names and screaming at him until he scurries away and cowers in fear of his own mother. By around the half hour point in this movie, I realized it was a 2 character story, and I couldn't stand either of them. At this point, what horror can happen to them that I even remotely care about?
But I need to back up just a bit. There is another "character" in this story. The book of the Babadook. A book that has very harsh and crude pictures in it and a story that is designed to keep children from ever sleeping again, rather than sending them off to dreamland. As the mother first reads this book to her son, she is shocked at the unfolding story. This surprised me a bit, because her son is very young, it isn't like he could just go out and get any book he wants from a store. I would be wondering about where the book came from before even looking inside. After reading the horrible and terrifying book to the end, she throws it away. The book comes back, she throws it away again tearing the pages up this time. When the book returns again, the pages have all been mended and new material added to the end. Pages showing her killing first the family dog and then her son. I have to say that I liked the concept of the book. It was very creepy.
As for the movie, it isn't until about 45 minutes into the film that things really got scary. I am going to contradict myself a bit here. I am a fan of the slow burn type of horror movie. The ones where it may not be until halfway through that it really gets scary. That is how this one was trying to play out, but the first half didn't engage me. I didn't care if the mom was going to kill her son and cut her own throat. At least then the story would be over. Yay. . . But back to the scares. Once the scares began in earnest, I got into it. And there was about 10 minutes there where I felt the hairs on my arms go up. But then it slid away from that point for me and never really returned.
The two actors, young Noah Wiseman and mom Essie Davis, did quite well in their roles. I just found the roles to be hard to stomach. And actually, as I watched the movie, I wondered to myself if I was watching the same movie that people were raving about online.
I am giving this one star, only because there were 10 minutes of terrifying movie here. One thing I always consider in my reviews is whether or not I will watch the movie again, and the answer there is no. It will never again come out of the cardboard sleeve the BluRay case is protected in. I was surprised that there wasn't a commentary track to listen to. I would have sat through the movie a second time for that. And, for the record, there have been movies where the commentary track has redeemed a film and upped my rating as well as my appreciation of said film.
Addendum: It has been pointed out to me that there is a plot point about the mother at one time having written a children's book. The implication being that she created the Babadook book and the entire story is really nothing more than her having a tremendous breakdown. My problem with that theory is that it sorta breaks the story of the Babadook creature, and that was the only part of the movie that I felt had real interest.
Addendum 2: There was moment I loved in this movie, but it may be a bit of a spoiler. You have been warned. When the mother "defeats" the Babadook and the creature withers in front of her, collapsing to the ground, she then approaches the trembling form. The son cries out from behind her "Mum, don't touch it." I loved this moment because it instantly called to mind the ending of Time Bandits when the boy, main character of the movie, sees his parents opening up a toaster oven. Inside the oven is a piece of what he recognizes as the evil that they fought in the movies climax. His words to them "Mum, Dad. . . Don't touch that. It's pure evil!" Naturally they do and promptly explode. Great movie and great ending. Babadook has a similar end, because in spite of her son's warning she touches it anyway, restoring it partially to power.
I come not to praise Babadook, but to bury it.
Part of me taking my time with watching this film is that I try and ground myself before watching anything. I find a way to block out all the hype and watch it purely based on what I am seeing. Strip away all the glowing reviews and see what remains. For me, not much remained. But before I run it through the shredder, let me give a story rundown. A mother to a young boy, about 7, lost her husband in a car accident. The boy is having problems dealing with the whole not having a father thing. It is alienating both him and his mother from all their friends. He is convinced there are monsters and only he can fight them. And then a real monster shows up in their lives challenging mother and son while also pitting them against each other. That is the quick story overview.
Now for the in depth discussion. While there are more than 2 people in this story, it is essentially a 2 actor play. The mother and the son. For the first 10 minutes or so of the movie, we see a terrible brat of a child that even I (as a father of 3) couldn't stand. It is no wonder they are alienated, his actions are incredibly bad. He constantly acts out, and tells stories of monsters to his peers, scaring them to no end. At this point in the movie we are rather sympathetic to the plight of the mother. But then the mother starts reacting horribly to her son. Calling him names and screaming at him until he scurries away and cowers in fear of his own mother. By around the half hour point in this movie, I realized it was a 2 character story, and I couldn't stand either of them. At this point, what horror can happen to them that I even remotely care about?
But I need to back up just a bit. There is another "character" in this story. The book of the Babadook. A book that has very harsh and crude pictures in it and a story that is designed to keep children from ever sleeping again, rather than sending them off to dreamland. As the mother first reads this book to her son, she is shocked at the unfolding story. This surprised me a bit, because her son is very young, it isn't like he could just go out and get any book he wants from a store. I would be wondering about where the book came from before even looking inside. After reading the horrible and terrifying book to the end, she throws it away. The book comes back, she throws it away again tearing the pages up this time. When the book returns again, the pages have all been mended and new material added to the end. Pages showing her killing first the family dog and then her son. I have to say that I liked the concept of the book. It was very creepy.
As for the movie, it isn't until about 45 minutes into the film that things really got scary. I am going to contradict myself a bit here. I am a fan of the slow burn type of horror movie. The ones where it may not be until halfway through that it really gets scary. That is how this one was trying to play out, but the first half didn't engage me. I didn't care if the mom was going to kill her son and cut her own throat. At least then the story would be over. Yay. . . But back to the scares. Once the scares began in earnest, I got into it. And there was about 10 minutes there where I felt the hairs on my arms go up. But then it slid away from that point for me and never really returned.
The two actors, young Noah Wiseman and mom Essie Davis, did quite well in their roles. I just found the roles to be hard to stomach. And actually, as I watched the movie, I wondered to myself if I was watching the same movie that people were raving about online.
I am giving this one star, only because there were 10 minutes of terrifying movie here. One thing I always consider in my reviews is whether or not I will watch the movie again, and the answer there is no. It will never again come out of the cardboard sleeve the BluRay case is protected in. I was surprised that there wasn't a commentary track to listen to. I would have sat through the movie a second time for that. And, for the record, there have been movies where the commentary track has redeemed a film and upped my rating as well as my appreciation of said film.
Addendum: It has been pointed out to me that there is a plot point about the mother at one time having written a children's book. The implication being that she created the Babadook book and the entire story is really nothing more than her having a tremendous breakdown. My problem with that theory is that it sorta breaks the story of the Babadook creature, and that was the only part of the movie that I felt had real interest.
Addendum 2: There was moment I loved in this movie, but it may be a bit of a spoiler. You have been warned. When the mother "defeats" the Babadook and the creature withers in front of her, collapsing to the ground, she then approaches the trembling form. The son cries out from behind her "Mum, don't touch it." I loved this moment because it instantly called to mind the ending of Time Bandits when the boy, main character of the movie, sees his parents opening up a toaster oven. Inside the oven is a piece of what he recognizes as the evil that they fought in the movies climax. His words to them "Mum, Dad. . . Don't touch that. It's pure evil!" Naturally they do and promptly explode. Great movie and great ending. Babadook has a similar end, because in spite of her son's warning she touches it anyway, restoring it partially to power.
Attachments:
