15 Greatest Horror Films Of The Decade (So Far)

The Babadook is a brilliantly constructed movie with great characters and minimal jump scares, overwhelming viewers with a creepy tone instead of just screaming "boo" every few minutes. It might not be the scariest horror movie of the decade, but from a filmmaking perspective, it's easily the best.

The film tells the story of a single mother, Amelia, struggling to raise her six-year-old son after the death of her husband. One night, she reads her son a mysterious pop-up storybook called Mr. Babadook, the scariest freaking thing you've ever seen. That book is about an entity called the Babadook who will torment anyone once they're made aware of his existence. And Amelia and her son are now aware of his existence. 

But the film is so much more than just characters being tormented by a monster. First and foremost, it's about a single mother and her struggles with grief and mental illness. Writer and director Jennifer Kent pays as much attention to the characters and their relationships as if she were writing a traditional drama film.

In other words, this movie isn't built around the scares with flat characters in between. It's built around strong characters and an emotional story. The horror is just added on to that.

With so much of the genre being plagued by unmemorable, stock characters you don't care about at all, that's pretty damn refreshing.