Five-Legged Iguana

¡Qué horror! 2015

Candidate #4

THE BABADOOK

(January 2014)

Jennifer Kent's feature debut is the exquisitely dark contemporary fable, The Babadook, in which overstressed Amelia (Essie Davis) must single-handedly cope with the handful of holy terror that is her six-year-old son Samuel (Noah Wiseman).

Toss in a disturbing children’s book (designed and illustrated by Alex Juhasz, who won an Emmy for the opening title sequence of United States of Tara) and that bubbling pot of parental anxiety just overflows disastrously.

Those blurbs on the UK quad below? In this day and age of sadly overblown hyperbole (“Best! Movie! Ever!”), they’re very definitely well-earned…

Parting Shot: Another disturbing aspect of The Babadook?

Daniel Henshall, in a small role; seeing the man who played “Australia’s worst serial killer” in ¡Qué horror! 2012 title, Snowtown appear as a rather nice and decent fellow… very troubling indeed…

Parting Shot 2: Kent’s 2005 short film, “Monster,” can be found on Vimeo here.

It’s pretty much a 9 minute rudimentary blueprint for The Babadook.

My humble suggestion: if you plan to watch The Babadook, do that first, and then, if you’re curious, check out “Monster.”

(The Babadook OS and UK quad courtesy of impawards.com.)