I’d read a few reviews of this much revered movie and couldn’t wait to see it. Unfortunately, my scary movie time is relegated to sick days home from work these days.
“Daddy, is that a grown-up show?”
Yes, Dear. Yes it is.
What is there to say about The Babadook?
Widowed mother Amelia and her troubled son Sam live in a big spooky house in a country where they drive on the wrong side of the road. Amelia is tired. Sam is obnoxious. Amelia is more tired. Sam turns annoying up to eleven. Amelia stares. Sam gets kicked out of school. Amelia and Sam are so annoying that even their family wants them to go away.
Sam finds a mysterious children’s book, Mister Babadook, that tells us what’s going to happen next. It happens very slowly, mostly between long silent shots of a more and more haggard-looking Amelia.
She tears up the book and throws it away, but of course it comes back (They always come back) in the form of a new edition. This new edition is a bit better than the old one in that it shows Amelia being possessed by the Babadook and then killing the dog, Sam, then herself. (Seriously, one of the more interesting scenes in an otherwise uninteresting movie.)
Unfortunately, possessed Amelia only manages to kill the dog before love conquers all and they trap the Babadook in the cellar and feed it worms.
The end.
Look, before some of you get all up in arms over the deeper themes of the darkness within our hearts and the overwhelming pressure of being a single mother, save it. I get it. The “subtext” is about as subtle as a fart in an elevator.
But this movie is boring. Not only is it boring, it’s annoying. I kept pressing the OK button on Netflix to see how much of this crap remained and when it did get mildly interesting in the third act, it was nowhere near interesting enough to save the rest of it from its annoying boringness. Far more interesting and likeable characters have suffered horrible fates in much better movies than this.
I didn’t like this film.
Scarydad rating: One and a half out of five stars.
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