The runaway Australian hit by first-time full-length feature writer-director Jennifer Kent, The Babadook has garnered so much word-of-mouth that even before a major international release, we've already heard about it in Brunei.
So what's so special about it? There weren't a lot of special effects used for creating the Babadook - it mostly appeared in a shadow form. However, what Kent did well was to create a great deal of suspense and an atmosphere that generated a lot of tension even without a scary, visible entity.
While that being said, it still did not fulfill one of my major criteria of being a good horror - the story never supported the scary moments. A lot of questions can be asked pertaining to certain scenes, like the wall with the bugs or the tooth incident. What have all these got to do with the Babadook?
The best plot point was that book about the Babadook and how it can never be gotten rid of, how itr would live under your skin and takeover you. But all these interesting points were never explored fully and was wasted. Even the book itself, had the story continued to focus on it, would have been a much more interesting plot device.
Here's where I wished James Wan or Leigh Whannel would have gotten their hands on it and gave it their treatment before it being released because there was just so much potential here.
But great performances by Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman.
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