The Babadook (2014)

Noah Wiseman (left) and Essie Davis in "The Babadook."

“If it’s in a word or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook,” is the cryptic opening passage in the children’s pop-up book featured in “The Babadook,” the artfully unsettling, unrelentingly frightening and masterfully executed Australian horror film written and directed by Jennifer Kent.

The book mysteriously appears on the shelf of little Samuel (Noah Wiseman), a precocious six-year old with a natural streak of mischief in his wide eyes, a fondness for performing magic tricks, and an increasingly unnatural fear of dread things that may be hiding under his bed. Sam is an only-child who lives with Amelia (Essie Davis), his loving but long-suffering mother, still grieving over the loss of her husband, who died in a car accident taking her to the hospital the night Sam was born.

Although mom and son are essentially happy and normal, the father’s death has led to a subtle disconnect between them that stirs every once in a while. For instance, Amelia, trying to bury painful memories, keeps personal items stored in the basement. But Sam, eager to learn more about his dad, sneaks down and rummages through clothing and pictures. The tragedy has resulted in lingering disquiet in their lives. But it’s about to get worse.

Amelia reads to Sam before bedtime to help him sleep. One night, he selects a red pop-up book called Mister Babadook. The book is about a strange looking figure that meets and then stalks a little boy in his room. At first, the words and illustrations seem disarmingly funny—as if attempting to alleviate a child’s fear of monsters by parodying them—but then it gets scary enough to not only whip Sam into a fit of tears but also palpably unnerve mom.

At this point, “The Babadook” is more darkly comic in tone—closely resembling the mood of Kent’s 2005 short film, “The Monster,” which the new film is based on—but it grows more deeply ominous. After reading the book, Amelia and Sam’s world turns progressively nightmarish.  First it’s Sam, haunted by visions that send him into violent panic attacks; then Amelia, who begins hearing bizarre noises and seeing shadowy shapes skulking in the night.

Pages from the eerie children's pop-up book in "The Babadook."

The home where most of the action takes place becomes a veritable house of horrors, with its icy, washed-out colors, creaking doors and harsh shadows. Kent shows a masterful command of menacing visual flourishes, sometimes using only shards of light and vast swaths of darkness to evoke fear and dread—cloaking the film’s creeping, malevolent terror in pools of inky blackness.

The Babadook himself is the stuff of expressionistic nightmares, cruel-looking and shape-shifting with sharp teeth and long, pointy fingers—he looks a little like the hideous vampire of “Nosferatu,” a movie that, perhaps not surprisingly, is said to be one of Kent’s inspirations. But the shadowy specter isn’t the only source of scares here.

In a sly, psychological twist, the Babadook is also capable of swooping in and taking up residence inside the main characters, where it torments by exploiting fears of loss and pain in their lives, turning them against each other. “You start to change when I get in,” the book warns chillingly, “the Babadook growing right under your skin.” The effect is particularly severe when it comes to Amelia, who turns into a savage, shrieking enemy near the end, causing young Sam to resort to the kind of inventive means of self-preservation that would make the kid in “Home Alone” proud.

The gateway to this Grand Guignol begins with the book. Because “The Babadook” is a resounding masterpiece of horror, it’s a device destined to become one of the iconic references of the genre—as memorable as the flesh-bound Book of the Dead in “The Evil Dead,” the enigmatic puzzle box from “Hellraiser,” or the cursed videotape of “The Ring.”