Although the Babadook is a short film, it is still a very good film in a short amount of time. Jennifer Kent, the director was an amazing one and I think this is the first movie I have seen with a female director. The Babadook had excellent techniques for keeping the audience on the edge of their seat almost every minute of it. It captured the technique of the unknown very well in many different scenes, along with that, the film had shadow obscuration which was incorporated into excellent. The music however tied everything together for the jump scares and Kent used them very well.
The unknown was the scariest thing in the movie because we never knew when the Babadook was going to show up. The first unknown was when Amelia ripped up and threw away the Babadook book in the trash but moments later it showed up on her doorstep. Another great example of the unknown was when Amelia was driving her son back home and she suddenly started hearing the Babadook and started going crazy. We didn’t know what was going on with her and I personally was confused by this which also had a fear tied into it as well.
Shadow obscuration was another fantastic element that was incorporated into the movie. When we actually did see the Babadook in her house, it was mainly shadows of him and we could not see him most of the time. At the end of the movie when Amelia was facing the Babadook after she got it out of her, it was only shadows of what it looked like to be wings. There were many other great examples of him but that one was the one that stood out for me the most when we finally got to see him in full power.
The last element that the Babadook used very well was music. Kent used music in places exactly where you would expect it which tied everything in. She used music on cat scares when Amelia’s kid jumped out at her when we were all thinking that it was going to be the Babadook that scares her. She also used music when the last scene where she killed the Babadook and used intense music to tie in the scary scene already.
This movie was one of the best horror movies I have seen in a long time. Although the length isn’t very long, it was psychologically one of the scarier movies with the elements of the unknown most of the movie. The shadow obscuration of the Babadook made it one of the scariest techniques throughout the film. Lastly, the music tied all of the scenes together and made it even scarier than it already was.
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