Jennifer Kent’s horror works because she takes exhausted, grieving people seriously. In The Babadook, Essie Davis makes a mother’s resentment painfully credible, though Kent’s relentless pressure can wear us down.
Fi1m perspective
The mother in The Babadook (2014) is already struggling before anything supernatural enters the home. Kent, who writes and directs, lets her love her child and resent having to care for him, without asking us to dismiss her as a bad mother. We were frightened by how credible Essie Davis made that resentment: the haunting reaches a mother already worn down by grief and childcare. It is compassionate filmmaking, and it gives us a reason to dread what might happen to this family. Kent does not need the creature to persuade us that something is wrong.
The short Monster (2005) helped Kent develop that feature debut, and her interest in painful experiences that people try to suppress has remained central to her work. The Nightingale (2018) moves into historical drama, with revenge and violence at its centre. The change of setting does not mean abandoning her concern with what people endure or how they might find help in one another. Her television episode The Murmuring (2022), made for Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, returns to grief and horror.
Kent’s intensive work with actors is a useful safeguard when the situations are so extreme. In The Babadook, Davis keeps the mother recognisable as a person rather than letting her become a collection of horror-film reactions. Kent also uses sound and simple visual effects to unsettle us, an approach that suits a household already made uneasy by grief. The creature is less persuasive when seen, and its appearances can distract from the more troubling business of a parent struggling to cope.
Nor does keeping the pressure high always help. The Babadook becomes wearing, even when we care about the people under threat. We recommend it strongly because Kent takes the mother’s unhappiness seriously, but a little relief would not have made that unhappiness less credible. Start with The Babadook, but choose an evening when there is enough energy left to be frightened.
Biography
Jennifer Kent is an Australian filmmaker and former actress. She wrote and directed the psychological horror film The Babadook (2014), her feature debut, which premiered at Sundance. Her second feature, The Nightingale (2018), premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
Kent graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1991 with a degree in Performing Arts (Acting). She began her career as an actress in Australian television series such as Murder Call and All Saints, and later worked as an acting teacher. She undertook a directing attachment with Lars von Trier on Dogville (2003) and directed the award-winning short film Monster (2005). She has also directed an episode of the anthology series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022).
