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Post by gorepolice on Apr 19, 2015 20:04:50 GMT -5
Amelia (Essie Davis), a widowed orderly, has been having a hard time coping with the loss of her husband Oskar (Benjamin Winspear). While riding to the hospital to give birth to their now 6 year old son Sam (Noah Wiseman), they got into a accident which caused Oskar to be decapitated. Since then she has been a lot more quiet, but also noticed that Sam is having behavioral problems. He is constantly frightened of monsters, and even goes so far as to build weapons to fight against them which wreck up the house. He also gets into it with teachers and doesn't get along with other children. It gets so bad that he has to be removed from school, much to the dismay of an already stressed Amelia.
While going through his father's things in the basement, Sam discovers a book called Mister Babadook, which he asks his mother to read to him. It starts out fairly innocent enough, but the book gets progressively creepier each page, to the point it causes Sam to cry out of fear. Afterwards, strange things begin happening around the house, such as Amelia finding glass in her food, which Sam blames on the Babadook. Tired from all this monster nonsense, she rips up the book and throws it away.
Amelia takes Sam with her for his cousin's birthday party, but he gets into a fight with her and bloodies her nose after she taunts him for mentioning the Babadook and not having a father. Amelia's sister says that her son is out of control and can't stand to be around him, and that she's sure she even feels the same way about her son. On the drive home Sam ends up suffering a seizure after they get into a car accident.
Amelia takes him to the doctor, where they decide to put Sam on some pills to help him sleep. After getting home, Amelia hears a knock on the door, but no one outside. She does however, see another copy of the Babadook book, which appears to have been glued back together. The words in it now have been changed up, and show her visions of her killing her dog Bugsy and her son, while also saying that the more she denies the Babadook, the stronger it will become. Terrified, she takes the book and burns it. Later on however, she gets a phone call from someone who makes the noises the creature does in the book. She tries to tell the police about this, but they don't believe her, and wind up sending child protective services to check up on her.
Now each day Amelia appears to grow crazier and less patient, snapping at Sam and acting very erratic. The strange noises and phone calls keep her awake all night, but she still insists on denying the existence of the Babadook. Is she really being stalked by the monster from the book, or is it something else? Will the predictions in the book come true, or will Amelia find a way to overcome all these strange things that are happening to her?
So, obviously with all the hype and praise this movie has been getting, I really wanted to give it a watch. I was tempted to get the special edition that came with a popup book because it looked cool as hell, but once I saw it was coming to Netflix, I decided to wait just in case. Thankfully I did, because this movie did not even come close to living up to expectations.
My biggest complaint with this movie is...well, the main characters! The mother is just absolutely awful in every way, and Sam might just be the most annoying child in any film ever made. Honestly, I wanted the Babadook to murder both of them horrifically because spending the entirety of the film with these 2 people was absolute hell. Another issue is that the film is fairly boring for the first half. Nothing exciting or very interesting happens. Truthfully, if I was watching this without TheCineblog, I'd most likely have turned it off before too long.
However, after 40 minutes, it does start to pick up. There are a few chills and pretty creepy moments to be had, especially the brief glimpses at the creature, as well as his creepy voice when calling on the phone. The ending though is kind of stupid. It almost comes off like they really weren't sure how to conclude the film properly, so we got that ending, which to me didn't make a whole lot of sense. All things being said, it was a highly disappointing film, but I wouldn't discourage people from watching it, since most found it to be very good. I'll just say don't go in with inflated expectations, and maybe you'll enjoy it.
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Post by endo on Apr 20, 2015 17:15:24 GMT -5
A lot of people seem to agree with you about the mom and kid. I thought both played their roles well, especially the kid. I mean, she's exhausted and he's terrified and I thought they did a good job getting that across. Overall, I thought this was a good horror movie that wasn't the same thing we've see over and over. I liked it, but I know a lot of people didn't. Good review gorepolice!
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