“If it’s in a word, or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook.”

Jennifer Kent’s “The Babadook” achieves and succeeds its artistic goals in subtle and brilliant ways.

Amelia (Essie Davis) and her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) live in a small, peaceful town. Amelia’s husband was killed in a violent car accident while driving Amelia to the hospital to give birth to Samuel seven years ago, and she has buried the trauma deep down in her soul since the night Samuel was born. She clearly has trouble connecting with her son, resenting him for the death of her husband and only being able to associate the memory of his arrival into the world with the unfair departure of her husband.

The really impressive thing about this movie is its ability to appear as your typical suspenseful, dark drama/horror film while quietly conveying so much about what a person goes through when they’re grieving.

As Amelia travels through the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), the element of horror and the entity that is the Babadook itself guide her and add an element of crazy, manic horror that the audience can feel right along with her.

Although she travels fluidly through all the different stages of grief, denial seems to be the main focus of the film. The Babadook actually embodies the pure, ugly grief Amelia feels for the loss of her husband.

“Don’t go down there, it’s not safe,” Amelia expresses to her son in terror as he begins to walk down the basement steps to where her husband’s things are stored.

So much symbolism!! So cleverly placed!

After Amelia faces her grief in the basement, she really loses it. She begins to have visions of killing her son, and hallucinates a TV program in which the Babadook concocts chaos and violent anarchy through 1920’s-esque cartoons. These images spiral into the murder of their beloved family dog. Once Amelia gets a taste of how therapeutic destruction can be when you’re mourning, she turns to Samuel.

“I know you don’t love me. The Babadook won’t let you. But I love you, mum. And I always will. You let it in, you have to get it out!” Samuel screams at his mother, who lies mangled in ropes on the floor, restrained after trying to kill her son. Amelia turns over and vomits out black goo. I’m thinking the black goo was meant to be the violent stage of her grief ending? But wait! “You can’t get rid of the Babadook!” Sam is dragged upstairs and the two are further harassed by the Babadook until Amelia screams “you are trespassing in my house!” to which the Babadook slithers on down to the basement where he belongs.

And there he will stay forever. Amelia feeds him once a year on Samuel’s birthday, which I’m sure you remember is her husband’s death day. Every year she acknowledges her grief, and it hits her like a truck. But she’s reached acceptance, and can move on. However, if she hears or sees something that reminds her of her husband, it will still obviously be difficult. Because, as we know, “if it’s in a word, or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook.”

OKAY, SO. Is this a good Halloween movie? Honestly, no.
It’s an excellent film. It pulls off so much, more than I could ever sum up in this review. But Halloween is spooky season, not deep rooted messages conveyed through the art of horror season. Although, your work is greatly admired, Kent! Check out Jennifer Kent’s other mentionable horror movies, short film “Monster” (2005), and “The Nightingale” (2018).