The Babadook Is Still the Scariest Movie on Netflix – GQ Magazine

IFC Films/Everett Collection

Hope you weren't planning on sleeping tonight.

Let me tell you about a scary movie I recently re-watched on Netflix. Its about Amelia, a single mother who only became a single mother when her husband died in a horrible car accident while he was driving her to the hospital to so she could give birth to their baby son. Six years later, Amelia is doing her best to raise the kid solo. But despite her best efforts, he keeps getting weirder: Refusing to sleep, throwing strange fits, fighting with other kids, making nasty little Home Alone-style weapons, and whining about a monster who wont leave him alone.

Oh yeah, and theres also a mysterious and indestructible picture book about a creepy-ass monster in a top hat.

But lets pretend for a second that the monster-in-a-top-hat isn't in this movie at all. My point? Even if The Babadook didnt have the Babadook in it, it would be scary as hell. The real-world, human-sized existential dread the movie evokeslosing your life partner in a random and and unfathomably senseless tragedy, and being stuck with a reminder that brings you nothing but griefis horrifying all on its own.

Like many great horror movies, The Babadook is built around one of those almost entirely unspoken taboos: The possibility that a mother might dislike, or even despise, her own child. And Amelias son really is unbearable! With the passive distance of a movie screen, were allowed to feel to feel that waybut Amelia isnt. So when this strange creature called the Babadook arrives on her doorstep, offering itself as a way to channel all her rage and grief at the enormously unfair hand life has dealt her well, is it really so surprising that it could worm its way into her brain?

There are so many things to praise about The Babadook: The bottomless lead performance from Essie Davis, the wonderfully realized lo-fi techniques used to bring the Babadook to life, and the taut, claustrophobic direction from Jennifer Kent, whose next movie cant come soon enough. But the simplest and most enthusiastic thing I can say about The Babadook is this: On every conceivable level, it is goddamn terrifying.

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The Babadook Is Still the Scariest Movie on Netflix - GQ Magazine