The Babadook

Director: Jennifer Kent

2014 / 94min / DCP

Amelia, a young widow, lives alone with her seven-year-old son Samuel, whose increasingly erratic behavior has become a source of terror to his classmates and, increasingly, Amelia herself. The simplest explanation is that Samuel’s acting out is tied to his father’s death, but another explanation is offered by the mysterious recurring presence of a disturbing children’s book called Mister Babadook, which makes Amelia begin to suspect that larger and more sinister supernatural forces are at play. A tense, provocative, and genuinely unsettling debut from Kent, which counts The Exorcist director William Friedkin among its many, many ardent fans.