Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #110: The Babadook (2014).

Amelia (Essie Davis) is a single mother in Melbourne still struggling after six years with her husband's violent death. Her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman), who had broken her water just before her husband had his fatal accident en route to the hospital, is doing poorly at school and always speaks his mind, which Amelia claims was just like his father. One night Samuel has Amelia read a storybook called Mister Babadook to him, about a humanoid who murders his targets after they learn of his existence. The book naturally disturbs Amelia and convinces Samuel that Mr. Babadook is real, which gives him insomnia. That in turn gives her mostly sleepless nights as she tries to comfort him. Very soon, after Amelia burns the book unexplained happenings occur, like doors opening and closing by themselves and Amelia finding glass shards in her food, until at his cousin's birthday party Samuel retaliates to her bullying him for not having a father by pushing her out of a treehouse. He attributes this to the Babadook also, which makes Amelia seek treatment for him. But that's dressing a gaping wound with a Band-Aid, because Mr. Babadook is slowly taking over their whole house and demands her to face him.

This is unquestionably one of the best horror flicks Australia has ever produced, and one of the finest produced anywhere in this century. Adapting her 2005 short Monster, writer-director Jennifer Kent has hit upon a very primal and human source of common fear and revels in holding a mirror up to our world with it. The villain here is a blunt metaphor for something deliberately trying to tear a family apart like death or disagreements can, and Samuel's experiences particularly tap into those childhood traumas we all have which can impact us for years. Kent demonstrates a superbly compassionate affinity with Amelia and Samuel in contextualising and visualising these realities yet also handles the supernatural elements with unrelenting panache and controlled pacing. She also draws a dynamite performance from Davis, and Wiseman isn't too cute or awkward as many other child actors would be in that role.

The Babadook became the first horror movie to win the AACTA (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts) Award for Best Film (tied, somehow, with the overrated The Water Diviner), and I think that was justice served. Because once you see it, you may never read a storybook ever again. It is simply terrifying.