‘The Babadook” is proof that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Based on this Australian horror film’s somewhat conventionally spooky trailer — or even a simple synopsis of the plot, which involves a bogeyman who seems to have stepped out of a picture book by Maurice Sendak’s evil twin — there isn’t all that much to distinguish it from many other similar frightfests.
And yet, as it turns out, the feature debut of writer-director Jennifer Kent is not just genuinely, deeply scary, but also a beautifully told tale of a mother and son, enriched with layers of contradiction and ambiguity.
In its broadest outlines, however, it casts a familiar shadow.
That’s the one thrown by the title character, Mr. Babadook, a top-hatted, claw-footed, black-cloaked ghoul who is the star of a disturbingly child-inappropriate tale that turns up one night on the bookshelf of a little boy.
The boy, Sam, played by remarkable 6-year-old actor Noah Wiseman, lives alone with his mother, Amelia (Essie Davis), who is still grieving the loss of her husband (Ben Winspear). Amelia has her hands full with the boy, who is not just morbidly afraid of the dark, but who has been acting out at school.
Yet even some cliches, “The Babadook” has an uncanny freshness.
