If it's in the Frame, or a music hook, there is no escaping The Babadook

I've been doing a fair bit of research on horror films since I've started writing the screenplay for "Fallen Angel". Primarily watching for the atmospheric elements that pull viewers from their seats and into the cinematic clutches of the spook at hand.

I started my research by putting on Netflix and watching a film that I've had on my list for some time now "The Babadook"

Now I won't spoil anything here because it's a film that I really would highly recommend watching, but for the purposes of this post I will be pulling a few frames from various parts of the film to help me illustrate my point so if you'd rather go into the film fresh then feel free to scroll on.

Now for a little background "The Babadook" is an Australian horror/thriller in which a hardworking widow unknowingly incurs the wrath of a malevolent demon known only as "The Babadook". Throughout the film we see out hero Amelia try, and occasionally fail to keep herself from losing her mind under the stress of being a single working mother as well as the target of supernatural attacks. The story alone is really well designed but where the movie really succeeded, at least in my opinion, was in cultivating a sense of helplessness especially through it's cinematography.

Helplessness

First of all the movie shows us outright the face of our shadowy assailant:

And quite a face it is. The Babadook is not an entity that wants to be seen, rather it hides in the shadows and seeps into our psyche when we are most vulnerable. Throughout the film we see the scene illustrated above play out for us over and over.

It's dark, we are alone, and our attacker could literally come from anywhere.

If you're interested in watching the film you can find it on Netflix, or through a couple of risky stream sites online. I'd advise paying special attention to the way the babadook forces a divide between the mother and her child. There are a lot of really well thought out parallels between the Mother and the Monster that I caught, and I definitely think It's a film that requires multiple viewings to fully appreciate.