‘The Babadook’ Director Jennifer Kent On How ‘Nosferatu’ Shaped The Iconic Film
Ten years ago, writer and director Jennifer Kent changed horror as we know it with her feature film debut The Babadook. With her contained story about a mother and her son still reeling from grief featuring a top-hat-wearing ghoul, Kent helped usher in a new era of horror, sometimes called “elevated horror”, that speaks to the deeper, emotional turmoil that’s always been in the genre, but is now being pulled even closer to the surface.
Read the full synopsis:
Six years after the violent death of her husband, Amelia (Essie Davis) is at a loss. She struggles to discipline her ‘out of control’ six-year-old, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), a son she finds impossible to love. Samuel’s dreams are plagued by a monster he believes is coming to kill them both. When a disturbing storybook called ‘The Babadook’ turns up at their house, Samuel is convinced that the Babadook is the creature he’s been dreaming about.
His hallucinations spiral out of control, he becomes more unpredictable and violent. Amelia, genuinely frightened by her son’s behavior, is forced to medicate him. But when Amelia begins to see glimpses of a sinister presence all around her, it slowly dawns on her that the thing Samuel has been warning her about may be real.
We spoke with Kent about ten years of Mr. Babadook, queer memes, and the emotional difficulty of working on The Nightingale.
The Babadook is out now in theaters in celebration of its tenth anniversary. Buy tickets now.
Categorized:Interviews
