I found this movie to be more depressing and oppressive than anything else. It was like being locked in a dark room with a depressing psychopath for 90 minutes. Glad I finally watched it but I'll definitely never watch it again and I'll be telling people to avoid watching it.
shareIf you told people important context like the movie is psych-horror but with a happy ending, they'd laugh at your judgment that it was bleak.
Horror isn't supposed to be bleak? Happy endings are bleak?
The only way to protect yourself from being laughed at is to make sure you don't tell people those things.
Horror can be bleak but it should at least give you some room to breath. Even Eraserhead has some subtle comedy and light moments. Babadook was basically 90 minutes of an endangered child in the hands of a sick psychopath. Maybe it's just me but that it not very entertaining. For most of the movie I didnt even care what happened to the mother, I just hoped that someone would show up and remove the child from the house. To me it was like the equivalent of watching a movie where a disturbed single parent takes PCP and terrorizes their innocent child for the entire movie.
shareit should at least give you some room to breath.
See, now you're introducing personal taste, but saying "it should" be like that. There's no such rule. Obviously plenty of people found the story entertaining. It's fine it's not your cup of tea, but that doesn't necessarily mean the movie is flawed.
There were elements that made the story more than "basically" what you outlined. Those elements were not obscure. They had to do with the mother being torn between mutually exclusive drives. If she had not been seen engaged in an actual struggle with the dark influence, and if in this struggle there was no sign of compassion and sanity in her, then you would have a point. But that context was there.
To see only the sick side is to see only half the performance, half the story.
"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson
I thought that is what made it special, you see, most people hate on the kid, but I found that character soooo well written, he was so oblivious and innocent, he knew there was something so wrong with his mother, but he would blame it on the monster, and was dead sure his mom would be able to overcome that, because of the love he was dead sure she felt for him, it was just so, so, so cute and beautiful, specially that the movie decided on a happy ending even with the stressful climax. They were alone, they were attacked by a monster, not only the babadook but also the people surrounding them, they only had each other, I just though it was a movie where the kid was the most innocent hero that I could think of, and I thought it was somewhat brilliant, since from the beginning of the movie he is making his seemingly innocent brat-like weaponery to face the monsters. You see, in real life, most mother or fathers, do not beat their Babadooks, they reach from alcoholism to narcissism or worse, in this work of fiction we saw love beating the abusive side of the adult towards the children, it was a beautiful work of fiction.
share"Horror can be bleak but it should at least give you some room to breath. Even Eraserhead has some subtle comedy and light moments. Babadook was basically 90 minutes of an endangered child in the hands of a sick psychopath. Maybe it's just me but that it not very entertaining."
What about the vibrator scene? Mommy was doing some pretty heavy breathing there. And it was funny to have him run in on her!
The cops laughing at her when she told them there was this threatening book that she just so happened to have burned up in the BBQ pit...that was funny too!
Or how about the bingo scene? "Five billion? Anyone?"
And comedy is funny.
So what?