The Babadook

Aaah the Imaginary friend!  I had them when I was a child…At least I hope they were imaginary.

That is the plot of tonight’s movie from Australian film director Jennifer Kent I’m talking about The Babadook.

All the rage on the Festival circuit in 2014 The Babadook takes us to both a new level of creepiness while utilizing some of our basic and fundamental fears.

Most of us first learned of fear at a young age. For some it was the creature under the bed and for others it was the monster in the closet and as a child you are the only person that can see these entities.

The origins of these monsters come from various sources to a child. They can come from a film that they have seen or a toy that takes a different shape in the night shadaws or in this case a scary children’s book.

The origins of this film can be seen in one of Kent’s early short films Monster that can be found on the film’s official website.

Now on to the flick.

The film follows Amelia who’s husband was killed in an accident while driving her to the hospital to give birth to her son Sam and six years later Amelia is not over the tragedy. Even going as far as not to let Sam celebrate his birthday on the date since it also falls on the date of his father’s death and locking up all of his things in the basement.

Sam is now terrorized by a mysterious unseen monster that he is obsessed with battling and spends his time making elaborate weapons to face this monster and the rest of his time he is playing like he is a magician.

Amelia soon finds a book that Sam asks her to read to him and she finds this book titled The Babadook is loaded with frightening imagery of a malicious maneater that lurks in the shadows and seeks the death and devouring to all that live in the home.

While she refuses to read the story and discards the book Sam’s obsession with The Babadook continues to grow and soon Amelia begins to realize that The Babadook may be real. All of this while slowly loosing her grip on Sanity.

As I stated earlier This film is creepy, not just with the imagery that also includes the use of stock footage of silent era films as well as the artworks but also with the cinematography and locations as well.

The film mostly relies on film techniques and shadow to tell the story rather than special effects which it utilizes on occasion to further the suspension of disbelief.

The story is also well written and allows for character development and while slow paced it does work for the suspense of the film.   

The Babadook is definitely a metaphor for grief in the film with the characters refusing to cope with the death of the other characters. I will also state that the film takes a look at the impact that child development has on a single parent who while struggling to earn a living has to also deal with the management of a child in distress while dealing with lack of sleep and alienation from her friends and family.  

This is definitely a film for the supernatural fans that follow today’s trends.

1 Dead Body

1 Dead Dog

0 Breasts

1 Beast

1 Broken nose

2 Angry Parents

Home Alone Style weapons

Gratuitous Vibrator action  

Vulgar Bingo

4 Stars

Check it out. 

Shark Week 2015 and AGFA

Well Here We are Kiddies it’s Shark Week 2015 and it is off with a bang…Literally with the week being moved from August to July one day from Independence Day appropriately naming the date of Kick off as Findependance Day.

There has been some changes for the annual seal chomper and some of them are bittersweet.

With the new management of The Discovery Channel comes the end of the Shark Week Found Footage Mockumentaries which I have to say that I am happy about.

While Megalodon and Submarine were entertaining I feel that they are not appropriate for Shark Week and the Discovery Channel where audiences will be led to believe that the films were real and misleading.

Megalodon was okay I felt that Submarine was too far-fetched and scientifically inaccurate for the specials that we are accustomed to from Channel’s programing which has worked diligently in the past 20 plus years to change the image of the shark.

I also want to give credit to Spawn of Jaws and the tribute to Paul Walker who had loaned his talents to one of his many passions in the preservation of sharks in the oceans of the world.

Spawn of Jaws follows scientists and documentary filmmakers who are keeping track of a pregnant Great White hoping to film the birth of the Shark’s Pups.

While the film was in production Paul Walker was killed on Thanksgiving Weekend 2013 in a car crash and his death is acknowledged in the film and tribute to him is paid in the opening by his Fast and Furious co-Star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

My Favorate Flicks on this year's line-up is Bride of Jaws and Lair of the Mega Shark

One of my favorite additions to Shark Week is the inclusion of Shark After Dark to the line-up. 

Gone this year is Josh Wolf and Taryn Southern as they have gone on to their own endeavors.  Wolf can be seen on CMT with his own show and Southern can be found hosting Movie Therapy  on www.movietickets.com

Remaining to pitch Dunkin Doughnuts and Red Apple Ale is none other than Bob the Shark who remains in commercial capacity.

Taking the reins of Shark After Dark  is Horror director Eli Roth serving as host. With guests including Kevin Smith and Greg Nicotero.

The Discovery Channel is not the only place to celebrate Shark Week anymore! While other networks make it a point to have Shark related programing in their own right there are also Shark Week Themed gatherings at many beaches across the country as well as other Shark Week events in non-oceanic areas.

On Monday night Scarface and I headed over to the Alamo Drafthouse where they are having their own Shark Week Line-Up which began on Sunday night with Jaws 3D and other programing includes a gimic showing of Sharknado with flying Sharks in the theatre and one of my favorite Shark films Deep Blue Sea which I reviewed on a previous Shark Week entry here on the Video Creep.

The screening that we attended was the monthly secret screening of the AGFA.

Now there was much speculation on this film and while many of us predicted that the screening would be the 1981 Jaws mockbuster Great White which was sued by Universal Studios because of too many similarities to its 1975 inspiration that the United States release was halted and remains a collector’s item among Genre Fans.

While our speculation continued and included Jaws the Revenge and Cruel Jaws James Wallace took the stage with his Jaws t-Shirt and informed us that the film was 1969’s Shark.

Now this was another flick that I had seen in my childhood that followed Burt Reynolds as Cain, a gun runner who finds himself stuck in a small village by the Red Sea where he soon takes a job working on a boat with a mysterious woman and her partner.

What Cain soon discovers is that his employers are actually treasure hunters that are trying to retrieve gold from a sunken ship that happens to be in the prime feeding grounds of many killer sharks.

I have to say not too many Sharks in a film titled Shark but I am willing to look past that because the film was not too bad.

The film is what is and it reflects the time that it was made and the audience reacted much to the events in the film that were common back in 1969 but not accepted in today’s films.

The production was marred in controversy when director Sam Fuller fought with the producers to have his name removed from the film due to both their editorial fails as well as the marketing of the film using the actual death of a stunt diver during production of the film.

3 Dead Bodies

0 Breasts

3 Sharks

1 Runt

1 Drunken Doctor

1 “Fatso”

3 Betrayals

2 Stars

Check it out.