10 MORE Horror Movie Monsters That Shouldn’t Have Worked… But Did
2. Mr. Babadook - The Babadook
On the surface, The Babadook sounds like a spoof, considering it centres around a mother and her child being tormented by an evil book. But not only is Jennifer Kent's directorial debut a full-blown horror, but it's also deeply disturbing and sure to rattle anybody long after it's over.
The Babadook follows a depressed widow, Amelia (Essie Davis), who's struggling to care for her troubled son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman). When Samuel asks Amelia to read him a pop-up book called Mr. Babadook, she's frightened by the story's morbid content. When she tears the book apart, she finds it reassembled soon after with a new story, this time containing pop-ups of Amelia killing her dog, Samuel, and herself.
In the hands of an inferior director, watching Amelia getting spooked by a book could be unintentionally hilarious. However, the sharp editing, ghastly score, and haunting imagery make these scenes utterly skin-crawling. Essie Davis' performance compounds the scares exponentially, since she plays the character with utter conviction.
Even though Mr. Babadook attacks Amelia directly and through hallucinations, her interactions with the book are more unnerving.