Last 11 things I really enjoyed:
Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
Safe (Haynes, 1995)
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
Diva (Beineix, 1981)
Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)
Everyone I know who has seen this has only had glowing things to say about it.
I am freaking dying to see it.
I want to see this so freakin' bad.
Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5
615 Film
Letterboxd
I feel like this is the movie I wanted Mama to be.
Last movies seen
Frank: Good
Mistaken for Strangers: Good
Guardians of the Galaxy: Good
Last TV seasons watched
Treme (S04): Good
The Legend of Korra (S03): Good
Currently reading
This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald
William Friedkin gushed over it.
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/12/0...is-terrifying/
It's a pretty great piece of work. Just really, consistently potent with its mix of nicely varied horror, endless building dread and then its surprising form of undeniable beauty that comes out of it, with the excellent lead performance from Essie Davis anchoring her character perfectly between the film's grounded, wounded character emotions with its fantastical terror.
Probably more genuinely, grippingly scary than any movie from the last bunch of years I can really think of, with the awesomely classical construction of a protagonist's biggest fears being personified / irrationally materialized in the form of what's haunting them, being forced to confront it in its most extreme form, which plays with one of the more frightening ideas for any film you follow one person's point-of-view of losing control, agency and sense of time, all finding a way to lead to those unexpected emotional wallops (which may or may not have been directly due to vulnerable the horror already made me).
As much as the theatre experience is usually my default answer for being able to see anything the best way (especially the first time), this is absolutely the perfect film to watch by yourself, lights out, as loud as you can without any foreseeable distractions. I just can't promise you'll sleep too easy afterwards. (And that's coming from someone who shakes off most films in this sprawling genre-- no matter how viscerally effective or truly well-made they may be -- pretty effortlessly.) It's not perfect, and some of the creature elements are a bit questionable (which considering its budget, I can forgive most of), but this still might just improve in my mind over time, and hopefully it does, since it feels a bit wrong already sitting outside of my Top 15 or so of the year.
***1/2 / 8.6
Last 11 things I really enjoyed:
Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
Safe (Haynes, 1995)
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
Diva (Beineix, 1981)
Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)
So yeah this was really great. Accomplished direction and two wonderful lead performances. Loved the sense of dread that built throughout the entire running time. Very effective stuff.
How do others feel about the ending? Was it happy?
[]
The film is filled with very complex emotions, and these are brought to life beautifully by both the filmmaking and the acting.
On a side note, watching a movie on a laptop sucks. This movie is never coming to Ottawa, and a co-worker mentioned he had downloaded a DVD screener of it. He put it on a thumb drive for me, but it will not play on my TV.
I HATE downloading movies and the practice of doing so, so I hope I at least partially redeem myself with the fact that I pre-ordered the BluRay before even watching it.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Whoo! I'll be seeing it tomorrow. Can't wait.
Yeah, good flick.
Regarding the ending, meg,
[]
I do think that, after watching this film, Oculus, and The Taking of Deborah Logan in relatively quick succession, I need a break from loved-ones-gone-bad-possibly-through-supernatural-means-and-representing-very-real-despair.
I watched this a few weeks ago & thought about it & apparently came here & rated it & now find myself a little surprised I went "nay."
Last edited by Irish; 08-03-2016 at 08:38 AM. Reason: meh
For me the most chilling moment in the whole film was when the Babadook (in the physical form of her husband) says to her "you can give me the boy".
Not "give me the boy".
"You can give me the boy"
She at best resents and at worst hates her son. How terrifying for a mother to be presented with the opportunity to get rid of her child (dooming him to certain death) and for her to be enticed by this possibility.
Yes! These were, for me, the parts that worked the best. She's exhausted, he's severely fucking annoying :lol:. The central relationship is key to the entire movie. I loved that, because it seems so rare in genre films.Quoting megladon8 (view post)
At the end my heart kinda broke when [].
Has everyone seen the original short?
Last movies seen
Frank: Good
Mistaken for Strangers: Good
Guardians of the Galaxy: Good
Last TV seasons watched
Treme (S04): Good
The Legend of Korra (S03): Good
Currently reading
This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Me too. There were a couple of effectively tear-jerky moments towards the end, with that being a big one.Quoting Irish (view post)
I thought both of their performances were great.
Likewise. That little kid was incredible. I hated him for most of the movie but at the end, I was pulling for him and cheered when []. And I was afraid for him. He seemed so tiny and vulnerable in some of those moments.Quoting megladon8 (view post)
I really need to see this again.
Thanks for posting, Evilshoe!
So literally the only problem I have with the movie is some of the Home Alone antics at the end. I can look past it, but for the preluding scenes that were so terrifying, it lost some of its effect when the mother kept falling everywhere. Plus, some lines lifted straight from The Shining.
But, is this not the most psychological terrifying movie, ever? At least in the 2000s. Meg's discussed scene, the slow decline of the house, the voice of the Babadook.... Wow.
What a way to incorporate many different fears together. Whether it be the way life progresses, physical fear of the dark, or knowing that you are going insane, but too afraid to admit to others and not able to get the help you need.
The unease it gives viewers may make it too uncomfortable to watch for some people. I figure that's why it never got a full on theater release.
The movie is quite smart in making the kid so annoying at first, but knows as viewers that we'll eventually sympathize for him, but not without some annoyance for him still at the final scene!
This was the first movie to scare me enough that I was gripping the seat in front of me.
Between this and both VHS movies, my faith in the horror genre has been revitalized.
Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5
615 Film
Letterboxd
I honestly think this is a crowning achievement in horror filmmaking. Most horror these days place a lot of the scares in the frame: either with CG effects, or creepy looking dolls/figures/people, or framing empty static space in a way to build suspense. This movie, however, doesn't have a lot of scares going that are shown and instead generates a lot of its creepiness in the way the camera moves and how it follows the actors, the jarring editing, the sound design, and also in how it keeps shifting our perspective from the mother to the kid and back to create this anxiousness. It's pure craft and very impressive.
I haven't seen this, but these are the best kinds of horror films. Exactly the reasons why I liked The Strangers, The Conjuring, and The Descent.Quoting number8 (view post)
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
I'll try it again, but, eh, I don't know.
“What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, er... an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks and that's all.”
I liked it well enough, but it is really blunt and obvious in its subtext. It's well directed, but it doesn't have much meat on its bones. And I didn't think it was scary at all, because it was so obvious what was happening.Quoting Scar (view post)
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
I found this one more unsettling than scary, which is certainly a layer of horror, just a different one than I expected. Davis is solid here, and working an entirely different register than in Miss Fisher's..., and Kent's structure allows for a more overt subtext, so I didn't especially mind this.
Instead, I found some of the child's acting mannerisms to be too off to truly register. There are moments, such as his early freakout in the car, where it didn't quite feel pitched at the right level. Also, once it reaches its third act and the Babadook morphs into its real threat, a lot of the unsettling design that Kent achieves through the first two-thirds of the film start to deteriorate into a more typical film.
That said, a lot of the design choices and structure are good, and it's massively more interesting than typical horror films even when it hits the third act shift.
The Boat People - 9
The Power of the Dog - 7.5
The King of Pigs - 7