Some films have the most straightforward ideas. Director Jennifer Kent is a big advocate of starting with a basic component, and her 2014 major release debut shows how something simple can exist with complex layers. For a film that shares similarities with Lynch's 'Eraserhead', this is something accessible and easier to digest for the masses. It's an abstract exercise in fear.
Set in Adelaide, an exhausted single mother, Amelia, feels defeated by her boisterous son, Samuel, who has a proclivity for wild theatrics. When a mysterious item appears in their home, a powerful shift in dynamic threatens to change their relationship forever.
Kent taps into that mix of anxiety and excitement many parents experience with raising children, and it's all the more heightened by the lack of a father figure in this dramatic horror. The mother-son relationship is what tethers everything together, but a mother's vulnerability in the face of an out-of-control child threatens to pull it all apart. Bleak and clinical-looking interior sets accentuate the impending doom, and some clever blocking gives each space in the home an isolated, yet familiar, feeling. I'd even go as far as to say that some of the choices with perspective using set design are reminiscent of the trickery Stanley Kubrick displayed in the Overlook Hotel.
If that's not enough to pique your interest, the amount of gaming-related ear-candy that the Sound Designer/Sound Effects Editor (Frank Lipson) included is enough to make any serious gamer wet themselves in awe. The unexpected easter eggs are as carefully crafted as the rest of the elements, and it's not hard to make your own conclusions on why they were used for certain prompts. I also need to give Composer Jed Kurzel credit. His commanding approach to the soundtrack gives it an ethereal and haunting quality with many of the tracks taking advantage of some hypnotising drone queues. It's mixed well and the rationing of pianos, bells and ghostly vocals are a perfect stand-in for the absent father figure.
Motherhood, specifically the partnerless kind, is something nobody can truly plan for. It's a core theme that brings heavy baggage to an arcane event that takes our characters by surprise, and the suspense of resolution is always obscured by the darkness in the corner. The Babadook is an evocative and inspiring trip, coveted by the horror community and one can only hope you see it for everything it is, and enjoy it for everything it isn't.
Set in Adelaide, an exhausted single mother, Amelia, feels defeated by her boisterous son, Samuel, who has a proclivity for wild theatrics. When a mysterious item appears in their home, a powerful shift in dynamic threatens to change their relationship forever.
Kent taps into that mix of anxiety and excitement many parents experience with raising children, and it's all the more heightened by the lack of a father figure in this dramatic horror. The mother-son relationship is what tethers everything together, but a mother's vulnerability in the face of an out-of-control child threatens to pull it all apart. Bleak and clinical-looking interior sets accentuate the impending doom, and some clever blocking gives each space in the home an isolated, yet familiar, feeling. I'd even go as far as to say that some of the choices with perspective using set design are reminiscent of the trickery Stanley Kubrick displayed in the Overlook Hotel.
If that's not enough to pique your interest, the amount of gaming-related ear-candy that the Sound Designer/Sound Effects Editor (Frank Lipson) included is enough to make any serious gamer wet themselves in awe. The unexpected easter eggs are as carefully crafted as the rest of the elements, and it's not hard to make your own conclusions on why they were used for certain prompts. I also need to give Composer Jed Kurzel credit. His commanding approach to the soundtrack gives it an ethereal and haunting quality with many of the tracks taking advantage of some hypnotising drone queues. It's mixed well and the rationing of pianos, bells and ghostly vocals are a perfect stand-in for the absent father figure.
Motherhood, specifically the partnerless kind, is something nobody can truly plan for. It's a core theme that brings heavy baggage to an arcane event that takes our characters by surprise, and the suspense of resolution is always obscured by the darkness in the corner. The Babadook is an evocative and inspiring trip, coveted by the horror community and one can only hope you see it for everything it is, and enjoy it for everything it isn't.
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