Saw The Babadook, a psychological horror film about a single mother who is being haunted by an evil spirit. The woman is a mousy, quiet little woman and her husband died while driving her to the hospital to give birth to their son. Their son, now, is a rude, booby-trap-making, attention-hungry, screaming little hellion who seems to be possessed himself. He's the source of this famous meme:
Most good horror films are actually about real-word problems however, and in this case it is that the son is such a difficult handful that the mother does not know if she loves him or not. We see how his behavioral problems make her difficult life more miserable and how keenly lonely she is and how the boy keeps her frustrated and single. That's also why I liked the resolution of the final showdown with the Babadook (spoilers here - highlight to read:) he continues to live in their basement with the dead father's things. The mother's resentment against the son is terrible, but it's not really something that can actually be killed or exorcised entirely. The best we can do is subdue it, and learn to live with it.
The film is highly stylized. The horror is psychodrama, so there's not a ton of viscera or jump scares. The woman's house is painted in dark blue shades (very on-the-nose symbolism there) and is so dark and gloomy that it looks like a Tim Burton claymation set. The colors of the film are very tightly controlled, with most things being oppressive shades of grey or wan pastels. This lends a picture-book kind of surreality to the film which I think suits it nicely. I wasn't able to get really into the film, so I feel it's not terribly scary, but it's tense and oppressive and depressing and in the end, isn't all of that the real horror?
No comments:
Post a Comment