What makes a good horror movie? I have been trying to answer that for many years now. A few common elements for me include: an atmosphere of increasing surreal dread, believable and empathetic protagonists, deeply disturbing themes that shred our psyches, originality, and a touch of nihilistic inevitability. Note I don't say anything about gore, sex, thrills, laughs or a happy ending. I'm not saying a good horror movie can't have those other elements, but for the last 30-35 years, filmmakers, especially American ones, have been ever falling back to the lazy, sexed-up, gore-filled excesses of the formulaic slasher film. I also don't mean to infer slashers are inherently bad, far from it. Some have been quite good, but they are inherently lazy. But the good news, for those who love horror, is that there has been a resurgence of great horror-telling in recent years, most notably from Asia Such directors as Japan's Takashi Miike or Korea's Chan-wook Park, or even America's Rob Zombie have been pushing out quality and unnerving in equal measure. Now, another writer/director can rightfully take a place alongside such luminaries as Argento, Romero, Hooper, Raimi and Fincher, and that is Australian first-time director Jennifer Kent with her singularly disturbing movie, The Babadook.
The movie is about a young, widowed mother Amelia (Essie Davis), and her troubled, seven-year-old son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman). Samuel was born during a horrific car crash that killed Amelia's husband as he was driving her to the hospital. Since then, Amelia has tried to move on, but is in a perpetual state of melancholy. Samuel, for his part, is acting out in other ways, obsessively seeing monsters everyone and lashing out physically. He is not particularly liked by his friends, and Amelia is similarly ostracized by her peers. One night, a mysterious children's book appears on the shelf called Mr. Babadook, a story about a monster who will eventually kill the people who let it into their lives. Samuel immediately sees the Babadook everywhere, day and night, and his personality problems worsen because of it. Amelia is convinced it is all in his troubled mind, but soon she begins to feel a terrible presence in the house with them. Is the Babadook real, or just all in their heads?
I hope this is not the only idea in writer/director Jennifer Kent's head. This movie was so singularly terrifying, it will haunt you for days afterward. It is extremely disturbing, mostly because of the underlying themes in the story. In an interview, Jennifer Kent said her hope was, in the end, to deal with what happens when people don't face and resolve traumatic events in their lives, and the cumulative effect that can have on their psyches. In this case, that stress comes to life through the Babadook, but Kent actually does something very sneaky. She leaves it up to us, the audience, to decide whether the Babadook is real or not, similar to the ambiguous ending of The Lady or the Tiger? which asks you, the reader, to finish the story.
Various troublesome themes persist throughout the film that are, at the very least unpleasant and unsettling: paranoia, isolation, physical/emotional abuse, fear, distrust. All these elements are expertly crafted by Kent into a slowly seething stew of insecurity that is unrelenting throughout. Kent said she was highly influenced by old silent horror movies. These films were especially notable for their surrealism, most notably in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligary or Nosferat. Kent deftly weaves these surreal into the tone of her film. It's subtle, but gives the film a slightly stylized look, creating a world that just does not quite feel right or comfortable. This, combined with the unpleasant themes, push a palpable sense of dread and anxiety throughout the movie. Rarely have I been so moved and/or disturbed by a movie like this. But the biggest surprise is that the movie is ultimately about the power of love. But don't let that fool you into thinking it has a happy ending...or does it? You have to decide for yourself.
This is one hell of a ride that I cannot recommend more highly, but be forewarned. It is hard and even cruel at times, and may not be for the taste of people who can't deal with horror, facing the fear of the unknown. This is the kind of horror film that I dream of, one that sufficiently creeps me by touching on some of my deepest held fears without cheating with piled-on gore. The promise showed by Jennifer Kent here makes me pray that she doesn't peak early like the great M. Night Shymalan. I hope she can continue to deliver, because if this is just the intro to her mind, I shudder to think what else could be in there. But I tell you this, I can't wait for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment