Dear Diary, I'm in Love With The Babadook

I’m a soft person. As in the kind of soft that claims they’re not afraid of anything but actively avoids looking into any mirror if the room is dark. If I did have to pick a poison though, I’m into psychological and suspense thrillers as well as horrors that are more than a jump scare and torture porn. I rarely seek out horror films, but now I’m at a bizarre crossroad between desperately wanting to watch something and fearing for my life. Smack dab in the middle standing under a flickering street lamp, like the devil himself, stands The Babadook.

I know nothing about The Babadook but for some reason, there is some magnetic pull I have towards those round eyes. From my ignorance, I assume The Babadook, or The ‘Dook as I want to lovingly call him? her? it? is a monster in a children’s book and it comes in a nightmare? A panicked mother tries to save her son from it? Every time somebody tries to tell the actual plot, I just explain that I’m better off not knowing. I do want to know the plot, but remember: I’m afraid of everything. I’m also the kind of person who believes everything you tell me. Just the mere thought of considering something in a movie could be real makes me nervous. There was a week where I was afraid of being left alone with my thoughts because I thought I was going to form a tulpa. Can you really blame me for not wanting to know the plot of this movie? Probably the most accurate piece of knowledge I have is what my coworker told me, “It’s symbolic for depression.”

Since this movie came out in 2014, and since all my friends are the kind would would rather get drunk and watch Netflix instead of going out, they all have seen movie already. Every time I go to watch it alone, I just psych myself out of it and another day goes by where I haven’t felt the sweet gentle embrace The ‘Dook. I’m too embarrassed to ask any of my friends to watch it with me, since rumor has it that the movie gets stale after the first watch and I don’t want to make somebody sit through it a second time, especially when I could waste that request on another Bad Movies Night movie. Something way worse, like Rubber.

The Babadook is a product of Screen Austrailia, photo manipulation origin is unknown.

What I’m also fascinated about is how the Internet treats the title character. Is The Babadook really a New Yorker who screams, “I’m walkin’ here,” in the movie? Is it really the LGBT icon and representation that the community deserves? Though I doubt The Babadook is an LGBT coded movie (don’t give me that look, Lights Out was gay and none of you can tell me otherwise), I wouldn’t be surprised if the monster were to excitedly scream something like “Badda bing, babadook.” The Internet has taken away its horror identity and made it a goodhearted joke, which I’m thankful for. Its goofy appearance makes it so much more convincing. As I said before, I’m an extremely gullible person so if you were to tell me The Babadook is actually just a really mangy dog in real life and a monster in the kid’s imagination, I would believe you. This all of course adds to the mystery of the movie for me and this internal turmoil is a perfect example of an unstoppable force (my love for The Babadook) meets an immovable object (my fear of horror movies). I’m stuck in a limbo where my only solace is bad Babadook-centric memes and that supply is starting to dwindle.

#Thebabadook