When was the last time you saw a horror movie that was genuinely scary? The kind of movie that sticks with you for days, and that keeps you up at night… Tusk? Okay, yes, but aside from that, it had been a very long time for me, until a few nights ago when a friend showed me The Babadook.
The Babadook is an Australian movie written and directed by Jennifer Kent. It follows Amelia (played by Essie Davis) and her son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman). The anniversary of the death of Amelia’s husband is approaching, and Amelia’s life couldn’t be going more poorly. Samuel is having trouble in school, Amelia’s work is stressful, and it’s clear that the hardships of being a single mother are becoming too much for Amelia to handle. One night, Samuel asks his mother to read him a bedtime story, and he pulls out a mysterious pop-up book called “Mister Babadook.” This leads us to what seems to be a classic monster-movie situation: a haunted children’s book has cursed this house, and the mother and child will have to escape the horrible Babadook. What follows, however, is anything but predictable.
This movie builds suspense, it’s complicated, it’s psychological, it doesn’t fall back on cheap jump scares, and it’s beautifully creepy. This movie is very much in the vein of classic horror films like The Shining or Rosemary’s Baby, but very modern in its darkness and style. The acting is amazing, especially from Essie Davis. The directing is superb. I love everything about it; so, please, watch this movie! Sadly, the only (legal) way to see this movie right now is by renting it for $6.99 from Amazon or Google Play. Hopefully, it will be available for purchase soon. However, it is definitely worth the cost of the rental; if you love horror, and you just want to be creeped out for the holidays The Babadook would love to spend the holidays with you…
Now for the real reason that I wanted to write this review: the ending. Like all the best horror movies, the ending is totally ambiguous. Obviously, I can’t recommend this movie enough, and I may have become mildly obsessed with it, as made clear by the following insanely long analyses of fan theories.
Spoilers ahead! Don’t read on unless you’ve seen the movie.
Babadook Ending Theories
1. The Babadook was real
This is obviously the more literal translation, but I think it could have definitely been the writer’s intention. This is heavily supported by the way that the climax plays out. Amelia (literally) ejects the Babadook from her and quickly returns to normal with the notable exception that the Babadook will forever live in their basement. With this interpretation, the Babadook is likely a metaphor for grief or even the internal darkness that lives within all of us. Amelia had been denying her grief over her husband’s death in order to take care of her son, and that grief has returned to haunt her and her son. Of course, the more you deny inner turmoil the more it returns. This is the pattern of the Babadook. This video from ComicBookGirl19 explains that the Babadook could be a metaphor for Carl Jung’s idea of “the shadow self.”
This interpretation seems to be the most popular on internet discussion boards, but it doesn’t explain a few things. First of all, the ending has a very eerie vibe. After the Babadook has revealed itself fully to Amelia and Samuel, we cut to some time later. The government workers from earlier in the movie have returned to check up on Samuel and we find out he will be returning to school very soon. The house is suddenly much brighter and it has been decorated for Samuel’s birthday. In the very end scene, Samuel performs a magic trick that is just a little too good. Based on the nature of the ending, it seems entirely possible that there is more to this movie than just a literal monster.
2. The Babadook was imagined by Amelia
This interpretation follows very closely behind the first interpretation. Amelia is being slowly run-down by her son and her life, and it is possible that the Babadook is the manifestation of her slow descent into madness. This theory is supported by a few clues in the movie. First, it is made clear that Amelia used to make children’s books. It is entirely possible that she made the book and introduced Samuel to the idea of the Babadook in the first place. When Amelia goes to the police to report that she is being stalked after she finds the book has been pasted back together, she puts her hand on the counter revealing that they are covered in what could be ink. It is possible that her hands are actually covered in soot from just having burned the books, but her reaction to seeing her own hands indicate that she hadn’t noticed their state before. She also hallucinates that bugs are coming from a hole in her wall only to find later that the hole has disappeared, indicating that she is having a mental breakdown.
The idea that the Babadook only exists in Amelia’s head means that there are two further alternative to explaining the ending scene. Either, the entire scenario has played out like Amelia herself predicted in the book and she has killed her son then herself, or she has managed to segregate her delusion to minor incidences in the basement every once in a while. The surreal nature of the ending would be entirely explained if this was some kind of odd afterlife, or if Amelia had killed her son and, rather than killing herself, has ascended into some kind of permanent psychosis.
The theory that the Babadook is only in Amelia’s head seems to sort of take away from the metaphorical aspect of the movie. Rather than a story about the darkness inside of us all, it is just a film about a woman whose life is just too much to handle. That being said, there is no reason why this movie can’t be some mixture of both of these theories. The friend who showed me the movie believes that the Babadook is real, but when Amelia looks into the bright flash of light, she is hypnotized or transported to the happy ending so that the Babadook can continue to control her body.
The final interpretation that I’d like to share doesn’t seem to have any real traction online, but I love the added dimension it brings to the movie. It also returns the movie to an exploration of the darkness that grief can bring.
3. The Babadook was imagined by Samuel
I doubt that this interpretation was intended by the writer, but so much of the film makes sense if you look at it from this perspective. Even before we are introduced to the idea of the Babadook, Samuel seems disturbed. He is making weapons, he is disengaged with other children, and it’s clear throughout the movie that these problems have been ongoing. If there was no monster in this movie, what would be left? It would be an hour and a half film about a mother abusing her son. Many children of abuse create dark imaginary friends. It is also common for them to become violent as Samuel does against his cousin. He creates weapons to defend himself, and even before the isolation begins, it seems he is struggling to gain his mother’s attention. It is possible that Amelia has been abusive toward Samuel for his entire life. Though the movie is mostly from Amelia’s perspective, we are seeing events through Samuel’s eyes, a child who cannot understand the terrible things that happen to him. Samuel is dealing with the dissonance between his mother who clearly loves him and her abusive tendencies.
This theory incorporates something that the others have ignored, the Babadook is a dark ghost of Samuel’s father. When Amelia finds Samuel playing in the basement (where all of her late husband’s things are stored and where the Babadook is most often seen), Samuel has arranged his father’s clothes against the wall. The look of the coat and hat are very similar to the outline of the Babadook. Also, when the Babadook first begins to reveal itself, Samuel’s father steps forward from the shadow. I propose that Samuel perceives his father’s dark presence over his mother to be the source of her abuse. Samuel blames his father’s ghost for his mother’s behaviour rather than facing the darkness of his abusive home. One thing that I cannot seem to find online is the source of the name “Babadook.” One discussion thread claimed that it loosely translates to “Chuckling Father” though I couldn’t find any confirmation of that. There is another potential source: perhaps it was Samuel who wrote the book, and it looks so professionally assembled because we are seeing it through his eyes. Samuel is just turning six in the film, the age that most children are just learning how to write. When children learn to write, the most common mistake they make is to switch b’s and d’s. Perhaps Samuel was writing a “Dada-book.”
To me, this interpretation is also the most consistent with the ending because everything is idealized not toward Amelia, but to Samuel. He gets to celebrate his birthday for the first time, he gets his mother’s attention all to himself (notice that the neighbor says she will come to the party but we never see her there), and Samuel is finally super great at magic. The ending is not the actual result of Samuel’s story, but the ending he wants. He saves his mother from the Babadook using his weapons and traps, and, most importantly, by reminding her that she loves him. In the end Samuel just wants his mother to be happy.
To find more from Katie Tregs, check out the podcasts Girls Like Comics, Dammit and Feminerd, or follow her on Twitter. You can also tune into Bitchpop for more movie discussions from Bitch Team Alpha.
