The Babadook - Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

So the idea for this post came from an issue one of my friends came to me with.They were afraid of something, however they didn't like being scared all the time and wanted to..you know..stop being scared. But how to do it? Well I didn't honestly know. I used to be afraid of a lot of things too.
To list just a few:

1. Heights
2. Demons/Jinn (think ParanormalActivity1)
3. Death
4. The Dark
5. Zombies/Ghosts/
6. Monster's from movies
7. The monster in the closet and under the bed

Now? Im not afraid of anything materialistic like that. Because, I was put into a state of being where I was literally paralyzed with fear, and after about 95 minutes, I was mentally changed, unafraid of anything. And that is what I'm sharing today--I watched a horror movie, The Babadook, the second greatest horror movie I have ever seen in my life, and now fear virtually nothing at all.

Amelia, a widow and single mother who lost her husband in a car crash on the way to give birth to Samuel, their only child, struggles to cope with her life as a single mom. Samuel is a troubled, angry son who has a constant fear of monsters and has several violent reactions to overcome the fear. This doesn't help Amelia's cause either, which causes all of her friends to become distant. When things can not get any worse, Samuel finds a book sitting on the top shelf, titled "Mr. Babadook", a book about the 'Babadook' monster that hides in the dark areas of their house. After she reads the disturbing book to him, Samuel starts making weapons that get him expelled from school. Even Amelia seems to feel the effect of Babadook and desperately tries in vain to destroy the book. Shortly thereafter, strange things from the book begin to happen, and Amelia starts seeing the Babadook in her dreams and, as she feared, in real life. Amelia and her son fight for their lives daily, everyday holding new terrors. Do they survive, or does Mister Babadook become master of the house?

The movie in itself is brilliant with a whopping 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 86% on MetaCritic. Links to reviews for the movie are below if you dont want any spoilers, because in reality, seeing spoilers you don't want to see...is just as scary as seeing the Babadook when you're least expecting the bugger.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2321549/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_babadook/

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-babadook

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Now, from this point on we're sailing into SPOILER territory. If you do not want to spoil the movie for yourself stop reading--you got the message. Read on at your own discretion.

The movie holds some of the most horrifying imagery of kid's being choked my invisible demons I have honestly ever seen. From the get go, it holds you in a sense of fear and you know and believe that there is no freaking way that there could be a happy ending to this horror flick.
Well, you're wrong.

 

 

 Because YES! There is a happy ending and our two main characters survive [except the dog ;( ]!

Anyways, long story short, you're struggling not to crap your parents throughout the movie. And then we reach the climax--and wow. What a climax. I would say it starts after Amelia was possessed and tried to kill her son, as foretold by the Babadook through his book. Sam fought back, stabbed Amelia and tied her up to restrain her. He didn't want her to die and promised to her that he would protect his mother and told her that he loved her with everything her had. "you don't love me anymore, but mummy... I still love you".

This made her come to her senses and Amelia was able to expel the Babadook from within herself and prepared to face the monster in one last confrontation. The Babadook grabs Samuel and drags him up the stairs against his will, and Amelia, the trooper-mom who had just been stabbed, possessed, and has been through a living hell, runs up after her son to save his life.  The Babadook grabs Samuel and pulls him towards the shadows, however, Amelia grabs on to Sam and eventually the monster lets him go. The Babadook emerges and reveals his true form, screeching loudly in a final attempt to scare off Amelia.

This is the best part.

The Babadook screams. Amelia responds by screaming even louder. She scares the Babadook and then, the Babadook is defeated, scared, and forced into submission. The Babadook was defeated. Confused? Here's what happened.

In retrospect, there is no Babadook.

The Babadook was a metaphor for Amelia's (Sam's Mother's) grief. It was initially "summoned" by the book, which was the trigger that set off all of Amelia's sadness, which in turn lead to the Babadook (her anger, sadness, pain, grief) "possessing" her. Amelia falls victim to several types of fears, which result in the buildup of these emotions, thus creating the Babadook. This lead to her becoming a monster of sorts as she treated Samuel, her own son badly, and killed the family pet. This carries on throughout the movie, and we see several times the extremely problematic mix of the "Good Mother" Amelia and the "Babadook Amelia" which is the manifestation of her dark thoughts. So she's constantly trying to be a good mother and fight the Babadook, but eventually it just becomes too much for her, and my the end of the movie, Amelia has fallen to her fears and essentially is consumed by the Babadook. Later on, the neighbor visits, and tells Amelia that she loves her and Samuel, and would do anything to help them. This, along with her son's own words "you don't love me anymore, but mummy... I still love you", enable her to finally take control of her grief and she "expels" the Babadook by telling it not to hurt her son (i.e. by taking control of her fears). This happens at the climax, where I mentioned earlier, when Amelia shouted at the Babadook to leave her alone. At this point, Amelia and her son had been through hell. She saw her son in danger, the last person who still loved her (besides the neighbor) and that's when her maternal instincts kicked into overdrive.  She rushed up the stairs after Samuel and the Babadook for the final confrontation. To protect her son, she stood in the face of the Babadook (her own fears) and scared it off. BANG

This is where the message becomes clear - There is nothing to Fear but Fear itself!

All this time, the manifestation of fear was literally possessing Amelia and drove her insane. This is so similar to so many other real world fears.  In other words, rather than the Babadook being a real evil creature, the evil inside her is what drove her actions. Once she took control of that and moved past her grief, she was able to proceed with her life. So by telling it not to harm her son, she took control of her emotions and thus "drove" it away.

We have all met out own Babadook at one point or another, where we have been so overtaken by fear that it literally possesses us and causes us to act a certain way, or be more reserved in some activities. But honestly, when you are afraid, it can make you feel so upset. If you can learn to overcome your fears, do that. If you have a fear of heights, go somewhere high up and look down, until the fear dissipates. Scared os spiders? Hold one (that isnt poisonous). Scared of the dark? Use a nightlight, then gradually start to sleep without lights on. people shouldn't fear anything. We are the greatest beings on Earth. Fear is the demon within us. So fear Fear.

There is nothing to fear, except Fear itself.

Peace.