100 Greatest Horror Movies Of All Time
10. The Babadook
If it's in a word or it's in a look, you can't get rid of The Babadook.
What starts out as a sinister children's nursery rhyme in Jennifer Kent's directorial debut soon manifests into a real, oppressive presence haunting a widowed mother and her child. Tormented by The Babadook, the pair's sanity unravels as they both lock themselves into the confines of their own home, which only makes their nightmares even worse.
Though the horror of course comes through in the titular monster and his storybook silhouette, it's just as much rooted in the human drama. A mother who resents her child (who is, let's face it, a total s**t) is a cultural no-no, and having to watch Essie Davis' character (who also gives one of horror's all-time greatest performances) struggle with this part of her, while grieving a dead husband no less, is as traumatic as any nighttime haunting.
A lot of films, especially in the 2010s, were keen to pull the whole "oh, the monster was really a metaphor the whole time!" card, but The Babadook is one of the few capable of doing that without undermining the abstract terror that came before. It totally could be about motherhood and mental health, but that also doesn't take away from the fact that it's equally about a top-hat wearing ghoul who eats worms in the basement.
[JB]