Bad Movie Thursday

Viewing Date: 2/22017

Starring: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Hayley McElhinney

Plot: Amelia, who lost her husband in a car crash on the way to give birth to Samuel, their only child, struggles to cope with her fate as a single mom. Samuel’s constant fear of monsters and violent reaction to overcome the fear doesn’t help her cause either, which makes her friends become distant. When things can not get any worse, they read a strange book in their house about the ‘Babadook’ monster that hides in the dark areas of their house. Even Amelia seems to feel the effect of Babadook and desperately tries in vain to destroy the book. The nightmarish experiences the two encounter form the rest of the story.

Rules

• Someone says “Babadook”
• Samuel acts like a brat
• Use of vibrators
• Samuel fires a weapon
• Dream sequence
• The Babadook Book appears

Quotes

“I’m really tired from the drugs Mum gave me.”

“I’m sorry Mummy I’m just really hungry.”  “If you’re so hungry why don’t you go EAT SHIT!”

“My cousin’s not coming because I broke her nose in two places.”

Viewer Quotes

“Nice trick, but can he make the dog come back to life?”

What We Learned

• Being haunted by an evil spirit is only marginally worse that having a bratty 6 year old.
• All an evil spirit is really looking for is a bowl of worms each day.
• You can make an evil spirit go away by yelling at it.
• The small dog always gets it in horror movies (we already knew this, honestly)

Final Take

The Babadook had some nice suspense and did well with the “less is more” approach early on, but the third act really fell flat and it was as if the filmmakers weren’t sure how to resolve the conflict with the evil spirit (which was never explained  other than a book appeared that led to a haunting-somehow connected to the accident that killed the father).  Not terrible, but it could have been much better with a resolution that felt even a little satisfying.