{"id":16729,"date":"2014-12-14T14:05:25","date_gmt":"2014-12-14T04:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=16729"},"modified":"2014-12-14T14:05:25","modified_gmt":"2014-12-14T04:05:25","slug":"the-babadook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=16729","title":{"rendered":"The Babadook"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"babadookposter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Director:\u00a0 <\/strong>Jennifer Kent
\nWriter:\u00a0 <\/strong>Jennifer Kent
\nCast:\u00a0 <\/strong>Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman<\/p>\n

O<\/span>ne of the best feel-good stories to come out of movie-making in 2014 was the fortunes of the Australian horror film The Babadook<\/em>.\u00a0 The Babadook<\/em> is the first time directorial effort of Jennifer Kent who sourced the film’s paltry $35,000 budget through Kickstarter and released the film to almost complete indifference in her own country.<\/p>\n

The Babadook<\/em> found a new lease on life however when it was made available on Apple’s video-on-demand service and was given some glowing reviews on no less than RogerEbert.com and The New York Times.\u00a0 All of a sudden, a bunch of message board and online communities that I frequent including Reddit, Something Awful and NeoGaf were all discussing this weird and wonderful little horror film from our shores.\u00a0 I love every little part of how I came to watch this film.\u00a0 It was a first time director who crowd-sourced the film’s budget.\u00a0 It found a global audience through a video-on-demand service rather than through traditional distribution models.\u00a0 And it was word of mouth through online reviews and message board communities that helped it find an audience.\u00a0 Just beautiful.<\/p>\n

And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer film.\u00a0 The Babadook<\/em> is a horror film buff’s horror film.\u00a0 Essie Davie plays a widowed single mother named Amelia who lives a sheltered and isolated life with her son Sam.\u00a0 Several years have passed but she still mourns the loss of her husband to a car accident.\u00a0 She is exhausted, stressed and sleep deprived thanks to Sam’s constant freak outs at night that monsters are out to get him.\u00a0 As Sam’s hysteria gets worse and worse, Amelia’s own composure and sanity begins to waiver and she begins to wonder…what if Sam is right?\u00a0 What if there really is a monster under the bed.\u00a0 And whats with that mysterious storybook about The Babadook that turned up in the house?<\/p>\n

\"thebabadook\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I love this type of horror film.\u00a0 It’s creepy, self-aware and builds to a crescendo thanks to its expertly paced editing and deft use of tricks and misdirections from Jennifer Kent who plays the audience like a fiddle.\u00a0 The Babadook<\/em> is laden with horror movie red herrings.\u00a0 There’s a creepy kid.\u00a0 A cursed storybook that foretells how the monster will get you.\u00a0 A little pet dog.\u00a0 An elderly woman next door.\u00a0 A forbidden basement.\u00a0 A prominent knife set in the kitchen.\u00a0 A dead father.\u00a0 Sleep deprivation.\u00a0 Medication.\u00a0 Hallucination.\u00a0 <\/em>A lot of fun in The Babadook<\/em> is derived from the anticipation that something is about to go terribly wrong<\/em> and trying to guess when exactly the moment will strike.<\/p>\n

I love the craftmanship in The Babadook<\/em>.\u00a0 Each little moment in the film builds upon the last and the quick-fire editing never lets you settle or get comfortable with whats happening.\u00a0 The film also also keeps the audience on their toes as neither Amelia nor Sam are totally compos mentus.\u00a0 You’re never quite sure if Amelia should be afraid of Sam, if Sam should be afraid of Amelia or if there genuinely is a big bad monster lurking in the house.\u00a0 We see the house through the eyes of Amelia when she is intensely sleep deprived and likewise for Sam when he has night terrors and gets heavily medicated.\u00a0 Nothing is what it seems and everything seems like it could be a threat.\u00a0 Its an entertainingly spooky and disorienting experience.<\/p>\n

Credit to both Essie Davis and young Noah Wiseman for turning in two wonderful performances that call on them both to get bug eyed, scream at the top of their lungs and look as if they’re one jump-scare away from losing their minds.<\/p>\n

I’m glad that The Babadook<\/em> found an audience and I hope the film is a launching pad for Kent, Davis and Wiseman to continue to find work and do what they love.\u00a0 I’m particularly interested to see what Kent does next.\u00a0 She’s proven herself to be a real talent and if she can make such a terrific film on a shoestring budget, I’d love to see a producer get behind her and see what she can really do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A widower and her son begin to suspect their house is haunted by the dreaded Babadook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2132,2133,2131],"class_list":["post-16729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-essie-davis","tag-jennifer-kent","tag-the-babadook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16729"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16737,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16729\/revisions\/16737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}