The New Classics: The Babadook

Hello, everyone. Michael Cusumano here to close out the second season of The New Classics. Since I'm wrapping it up so close to Halloween I feel like it's my duty to honor one of the 21st Century's new horror icons.

At first glance Mr. Babadook appears to be a character engineered to anchor a horror franchise. His distinctive silhouette, with his spidery claws and wardrobe right out of Dr. Caligari’s cabinet, seems ready-made for branding. It’s only once you’ve been through the psychological wringer of Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook that you realize how ill-suited the character is to such a role. The Babadook is a single serving tormentor, tailored specifically to the psychological scars of Essie Davis’s Amelia. He could no more pick up and move to a different victim than Mrs. Bates could torture someone other than poor Norman.

Scene: The Book Returns...

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Tweetweek: Babadook, Keaton, and Chris ____

It's time for another roundup of tweets that amused provoked or told it like it was this week...

I went to sleep thinking about Diane Keaton's AFI tribute nails and woke up thinking about Diane Keaton's AFI tribute nails pic.twitter.com/hYbopCDqtv

— Chris Feil (@chrisvfeil) June 9, 2017

 Though we've been talking about Diane Keaton a bit to celebrate her AFI Lifetime Achievement Award they don't broadcast such things live (boo!). So you can bet we'll return to that particular celebration after the ceremony airs. It's scheduled for this Thursday June 15th at 10 PM ET/PT on TNT and will have an encore presentation on TCM on July 31st. Excited?

More tweets featuring The Babadook, Hollywood's "Chris" fetish, and more are after the jump...

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Babalink

Two Must Reads @ Vulture
In this moment I really must bow down. Vulture just slayed all this week. I'm sure it helps to have a huge budget and access to hundreds of talented writers but still. I am regularly in awe. Particularly of these two pieces:

• "The 30 Best Broadway Songs of the Past 40 Years" insightful fun writeups in shows stretching from Annie in 1977 through Hamilton in 2015 with a ton of Stephen Sondheim near the top (as well they should be)
• "A Conversation with Ann Dowd and Margo Martindale" two scene stealers talk late-blooming careers, being confused for each other, favorite roles, and not repeating yourself. 

Lots more good linkage after the jump...

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Women's Pictures - Jennifer Kent's The Babadook

Happy early Halloween, everyone!

In the comments section of last week's post on A Girl Walked Home Alone At Night, a brief but lively discussion sprung up over whether folks prefer the Iranian-American vampire flick, or Jennifer Kent's inaugural feature film, The Babadook. Rather than pit the two films against each other, let's just take a moment to appreciate the fact that in 2014, we got two really good, buzzed-about horror films from two new female directors. This, as much as any other reason, is why I hope 2014 will be remembered in the future as one of those Great Years of Film.

Anyway, it could be argued that whether you prefer A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night or The Babadook is partially determined by whether you prefer indie swagger to conventional horror. But to call the film "conventional" would be to sell The Babadook incredibly short. At first glance, The Babadook looks like a stylish example of a supernatural thriller, but the genre tropes hide a dangerous film about the subconscious strife between parent and child. [More...]

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