The Babadook Is Alive, And I’m Afraid

-David Skal: “It’s Alive! I’m Afraid!” ​The Monster Show is about how people began to be fascinated with how monstrous giving birth could be as well as the viewing of freaks who are disfigured or shouldn’t be entertaining to look at. Skal goes on and talks about movies such as Freaks, Rosemary’s Baby, Eraserhead, and more that depicts the idea of giving birth to these heinous looking creatures. This article goes to on show and explain how people saw birth as monstrous, as well as the demonization of fatal images.-

Mental illness and domestic violence is a terrifying aspect of daily life. What makes it even more horrifying is the addition of a giant Gothic Willy Wonka like Monster that torments a household of a single mother and her son. The Babadook may show some aspects of a regular/traditional horror, but there is a lot more going on. The characters introduced in the film are layered, the plot is volatile, and conclusions are ominous and ambiguous. The Babadook can be analyzed utilizing David Skal: “It’s Alive! I’m Afraid!” This is a great article to use as a resource because it allows the viewers to get a better understanding of how most monsters are expressions of some kind of birth process that many consider monstrous or horrible. Skal does a great job breaking this information down and explaining how these monster are created . The Babadook is no different with the introduction of its monster, the more someone refuses to believe The Babadook, the stronger its presence becomes. The Babadook is created and born into this world through the refusal to believe in the abnormal.

To start off, The Babadook captures an aspect of horror which could be argued by many the scariest form of horror. That horror being what humans fear the most which is not a monster or a serial killer, but themselves. The emotions inside people, the inner-self which people do not often show to others, the delusive veil of self control. The base line of this movie is that Amelia created The Babadook, and Amelia was always The Babadook. The film shows the dissociated perceptions of both child and mother as they attempt to survive their horrifying and tragic reality with The Babadook. Amelia is a mother who is pathologically detached and maliciously violent towards her child. People are blinded by their deeply held belief that mothers are supposed to be nurturing, loving, and safe havens for their children. The reality is that Amelia is bewitched by borderline personality disorder triggered by the traumatic loss of her husband. A perpetual victim, she feeds off of her self-pity and the pity of those around her, using it to justify her seething resentment of her child. Unable to take responsibility for her abusive behavior, she birthed the “The Babadook” (Figure 2).

Skal states, “All monsters are expressions or symbols of some kind of birth process, however distorted or bizarre.” The Babadook was created from Amelia and can be seen as its mother. At first, the viewers are led to believe that The Babadook came from the creepy book that Amelia found, however it is shown that The Babadook is the physical manifestation of all the hate, anger, and doubt that Amelia gives off around her. This was a strange way to bring a monster into the world, The Babadook took a very different approach compared to films in the past.

Skal also states, “By the mid-sixties, disturbing images related to reproduction had been piled up high in America’s reservoir of dreams. Beyond thalidomide and Freaks, the earlier horror icons (all aggressively resurrected and exploited in the early sixties) also dealt in one way or another with fantastic alternate forms of human replication. That a new monster myth would develop in response to this physic stockpile was virtually inescapable.” This is an important quote because it talks about how people were going about seeing monsters in films and how people were secretly obsessed with them despite how horrifying they were. Freaks and Thalidomide allowed people to see some monstrous births and what the outcomes of this looks like, however, people were beginning to move on and were wanting to see a different type of monstrous birth. Luckily, The Babadook does just this once Amelia’s mental health begins to deteriorate even more, a blatant terrifying creature is created based off of negative emotions. What makes this so scary is that there are many people battling these same issues that Amelia has. A lot of people wouldn’t be able to cope with themselves if their negative emotions spawned monsters.

Altogether, The Babadook is a film about a deeply troubled mother and her child who is living in constant fear of and for his mother, desperately struggling to protect himself, protect his abusive mother, and, ultimately, to survive. Once Amelia realizes that she created this creature through hate, Amelia understood that she had control over the monster. The Babadook would back down in the presence of positive energy (Figure 3).

However, the film took a Rosemary Baby turn once Amelia realized she couldn’t get rid of the monster. Instead choosing to care for the monster and allowing it to live in the house with her and her son. Skal states, “Instead of destroying the thing, Rosemary’s maternal instincts prevail and she accepts the golden-eyed monster as her own– horn-buds, tail, and all.” Even though Amelia doesn’t embrace The Babadook like Rosemary did her child, Amelia still keep the monster around. Maybe this can be seen as some way to atone for her terrible behavior towards her son, or just a reminder of what could happen if she began to feel negative and acted that way again. Keeping The Babadook in the house regulates Amelia from going down that dark path and possibly creating another monster.