Babadook vs. It Follows: Which 2014 Psyche-Shredder Endures?

In the shadow of towering grief or the slow march of inevitable doom, two monsters from 2014 still whisper in the dark. But only one truly owns your nightmares.

Both The Babadook (2014) and It Follows (2014) arrived like thunderclaps in the indie horror scene, stripping away jump scares for something far more insidious: a siege on the mind. Directed by Jennifer Kent and David Robert Mitchell respectively, these films transformed personal fears into universal dread, proving psychological horror could rival the visceral slashers of old. This showdown dissects their techniques, themes, and lingering power to crown the more effective terror.

  • The Babadook weaponises maternal grief into a pop-up book beast, forcing confrontation with buried pain.
  • It Follows crafts an STD allegory as a shape-shifting stalker, turning sex into a death sentence.
  • Through sound, visuals, and raw performances, one edges ahead in carving permanent scars on the psyche.

Monsters from the Margins: Origins in Indie Grit

The year 2014 marked a renaissance for low-budget horror, where Australian filmmaker Jennifer Kent and American David Robert Mitchell mined personal anxieties to birth icons. The Babadook, Kent’s feature debut after her short film Monster, emerged from the 2009 Melbourne International Film Festival circuit. Funded through Screen Australia and private investors for under two million dollars, it channelled Kent’s scriptwriting roots from Assassins Creek. Meanwhile, It Follows stemmed from Mitchell’s childhood visions of a relentless walker in Detroit suburbs, shot on 35mm Super 16 for a retro haze, backed by A24 after premiering at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight.

Production hurdles shaped both. Kent battled investor scepticism over her ‘grief monster’ pitch, opting for practical effects from Australian workshops to manifest Mister Babadook as a top-hatted specter. Mitchell, constrained by Michigan winters, filmed in abandoned homes, using local non-actors for authenticity. These origins underscore their effectiveness: intimate budgets forced innovation, turning limitations into atmospheric gold.

Where The Babadook feels like a pressure cooker of domestic hell, It Follows sprawls across urban decay, each reflecting national psyches. Australia’s isolation mirrors Amelia’s entrapment; America’s vastness amplifies the entity’s pursuit. This foundational grit sets the stage for psychological potency.

Grief’s Pop-Up Predator: Dissecting The Babadook

Amelia (Essie Davis) claws through single motherhood after her husband’s death on their son’s birthday. Young Samuel (Noah Wiseman) fixates on a sinister pop-up book, Mister Babadook, its rhyming threats manifesting as creaking shadows and contorted figures. As Amelia unravels, the Babadook embodies suppressed rage, culminating in a basement standoff where poison and expulsion fail until she integrates the monster.

Kent’s screenplay, honed over six years, draws from real bereavement studies, positioning the creature as metaphor for depression’s inescapability. Scenes like the kitchen knife standoff pulse with raw maternal terror, Davis’s wide eyes and trembling hands selling the fracture. The film’s confined palette, shadows swallowing the cramped house, mirrors clinical descriptions of grief’s claustrophobia.

Effectiveness peaks in ambiguity: is the Babadook supernatural or hallucination? This duality forces viewers into Amelia’s turmoil, echoing Repulsion (1965) but grounded in parenthood’s brutal reality. No sequel bait; its power lies in emotional residue, leaving audiences haunted by their own losses.

The Slow Stalker’s Shadow: Unpacking It Follows

Teen Jay (Maika Monroe) hooks up with Hugh, only to wake paralysed as he passes ‘it’ – a entity that walks unerringly toward its target, shape-shifting into loved ones or strangers, transferable only through sex. With friends, Jay flees across Detroit’s ruins, bullets and boats useless against its plodding inevitability.

Mitchell’s genius lies in the entity’s rules: visible only to the afflicted, its gait evokes urban legends like Bloody Mary, but rooted in post-AIDS fears. The 1970s synth score by Disasterpeace mimics Halloween (1978), each pulse syncing with footsteps, building paranoia without gore. A pivotal lake scene, entity wading amid fireworks, blends beauty and horror seamlessly.

Psychological edge comes from communal dread; friends witness Jay’s terror, fracturing isolation. Yet its metaphor – sex as contagion – risks alienating, though Monroe’s vulnerability anchors it. The ambiguous finale, entity lurking distant, promises eternal vigilance.

Sonic Assaults: Sound Design as Silent Scream

Sound elevates both to mastery. In The Babadook, Kent deploys silence ruthlessly: Amelia’s insomnia punctuated by Samuel’s screams or the book’s pages scraping like claws. Composer Jed Kurzel layers industrial drones, evoking The Witch (2015), where absence amplifies creaks into omens.

It Follows counters with relentless synth washes, footsteps crunching eternally. Mitchell’s mix ensures the entity’s approach drowns conversation, simulating hunted panic. Rich Vreeland’s score, inspired by John Carpenter, throbs like a migraine, studies noting its role in sustained cortisol spikes.

Here, It Follows edges for immersion; its audio invades like the curse, while Babadook’s builds to cathartic release. Both redefine aural horror, proving ears can terrify more than eyes.

Cinematography’s Grip: Frames of Dread

Radek Ladczuk’s work in The Babadook confines via Dutch angles and negative space, Babadook looming in corners like Freudian id. High-contrast black-and-white book sequences homage German Expressionism, trapping viewers in Amelia’s descent.

Empire’s It Follows cinematography employs long takes and shallow depth, entity’s advance blurring backgrounds into threat. Mitchell’s static wide shots mimic surveillance, heightening exposure. Beach sequences glow with suburban nostalgia twisted sinister.

Babadook’s intimacy claustrophobically effective for personal trauma; It Follows’ expanses underscore futility. Visuals cement their psychological supremacy over spectacle-driven peers.

Performances That Pierce: Human Anchors in the Abyss

Essie Davis in The Babadook delivers a tour de force, oscillating from weary mum to feral survivor, her raw sobs drawing from method immersion. Noah Wiseman’s unfiltered intensity, achieved sans child labour tricks, mirrors real neuroses.

Maika Monroe anchors It Follows with quiet fortitude, eyes wide in perpetual scan. Supporting ensemble – Olivia Luccardi’s wry Paul, Lili Sepe’s Yara with bookish detachment – fleshes communal coping.

Davis’s emotional pyrotechnics grant Babadook deeper resonance; Monroe’s subtlety suits relentless pursuit. Both elevate scripts through authenticity.

Metaphors Unleashed: Trauma’s Tangled Webs

The Babadook dissects widowhood’s stages, Kübler-Ross model woven in: denial via book-burning, bargaining in basement rites. Gender flips slasher tropes, Amelia wielding hammer as empowerment.

It Follows allegorises venereal disease, post-HIV promiscuity fears, entity’s nudity underscoring violation. Queerness subtly nods via transferable curse, broadening dread.

Babadook’s specificity universalises grief; It Follows’ abstraction invites projection. Effectiveness hinges on relatability: personal pain trumps abstract peril for most.

Effects and Illusions: Practical Phantoms

Practical effects shine. Babadook’s suit, crafted by Odd Studio, uses elongated limbs for uncanny valley, influenced by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). No CGI; forced perspective sells height.

It Follows shuns gore, entity disguises via prosthetics and doubles, slow motion gait perfected in rehearsals. Underwater shots, practical rigs, amplify otherworldliness.

Both prioritise suggestion, Babadook’s manifestations more visceral, It Follows’ restraint building mythos. Purity enhances psychological bite.

Legacy’s Long Shadow: Echoes in Eternity

The Babadook spawned memes (‘you cannot kill the Babadook’) yet resists commodification, influencing Smile (2022) grief horrors. Censored in New Zealand for ‘disturbing’, it affirmed arthouse cred.

It Follows birthed ‘elevated horror’, paving A24’s Hereditary (2018), its entity iconic in games like Dead by Daylight. Cult status endures via festivals.

Babadook’s emotional legacy deeper; It Follows innovates form. Both revitalised genre post-Paranormal Activity.

The Verdict: One Monster Prevails

Effectiveness crowns The Babadook: its intimate evisceration of grief forges unbreakable bonds, forcing self-reckoning absent in It Follows’ cerebral chase. While Mitchell’s film innovates dread mechanics, Kent’s raw humanity lingers longest, proving psychological horror thrives on heart’s fractures over intellect’s puzzles. Both masterpieces, but Babadook burrows irretrievably.

Director in the Spotlight

Jennifer Kent, born 1969 in Brisbane, Australia, grew up devouring horror classics amid suburban normalcy. After studying at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, she directed shorts like Monster (2005), which caught Guillermo del Toro’s eye. The Babadook (2014) launched her, earning AACTA Awards and global acclaim. She penned scripts for Assassins Creek (2000) and contributed to East West 101 (2007-2011). Next, The Nightingale (2018), a brutal colonial revenge tale starring Aisling Franciosi, won audience prizes at Venice and grossed critically for its unflinching violence. Kent directed episodes of Spooks: The Greater Good (2015) and Jack Irish (2016). Her influences – Hitchcock, Polanski – shine in confined terror. Upcoming: His Dark Materials episodes and a Babadook sequel tease. Filmography highlights: Monster (2005, short); The Babadook (2014, feature debut, grief horror); The Nightingale (2018, period thriller); Pray for Rain (2017, crime drama). Kent’s oeuvre probes trauma’s underbelly with feminine fury.

Actor in the Spotlight

Maika Monroe, born Dillon Monroe on 10 May 1993 in Santa Barbara, California, traded pro kiteboarding for acting after modelling in the Virgin Islands. Spotted in At Any Price (2012) with Dennis Quaid, she exploded with It Follows (2014), her poised terror defining modern final girls. The Guest (2014) opposite Dan Stevens showcased scream queen versatility. Indies followed: Labyrinth (2015? Wait, Echo in the Dark? No: Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), The 5th Wave (2016). Breakthroughs include Greta (2018) with Isabelle Huppert, earning Fangoria Chainsaw nods, and Villains (2019). TV: Too Old to Die Young (2019, Nic Refn series). Influences: skate culture, horror icons like Jamie Lee Curtis. Awards: Scream Awards nominee. Comprehensive filmography: At Any Price (2012, drama debut); Labour Day (2013); It Follows (2014, horror breakout); The Guest (2014, action-thriller); Independence Day: Resurgence (2016, sci-fi); The 5th Wave (2016, YA dystopia); Greta (2019, stalker thriller); Watcher (2022, psychological); Significant Other (2022, sci-fi horror). Monroe embodies resilient youth, blending vulnerability with steel.

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