Grief is not a shadow that fades; it is a beast that claws its way into the light, demanding to be fed.

Two modern horror masterpieces, The Babadook (2014) and Hereditary (2018), stand as towering achievements in transforming the abstract agony of loss into visceral, otherworldly terror. Jennifer Kent’s debut and Ari Aster’s sophomore feature both centre on mothers grappling with unimaginable bereavement, where sorrow manifests as supernatural entities hell-bent on destruction. This comparison unearths how each film wields grief as a weapon, dissecting their shared DNA while celebrating their distinct horrors.

  • Both films personify grief as an invasive monster, turning personal trauma into a force that corrupts families from within.
  • Exceptional lead performances by Essie Davis and Toni Collette anchor the emotional realism, making the supernatural all the more chilling.
  • Their innovations in sound, visuals, and narrative structure have redefined psychological horror, influencing a wave of trauma-centric genre works.

The Pop-Up Book of Perpetual Pain

In The Babadook, Jennifer Kent crafts a claustrophobic nightmare rooted in the raw immediacy of widowhood and single parenthood. Amelia (Essie Davis), a grieving nurse still haunted by her husband’s death in a car crash on their son Samuel’s birthday, discovers a sinister children’s book called Mister Babadook. The tale warns that once someone learns of the Babadook, it will pursue them forever. Samuel (Noah Wiseman) becomes obsessed with the creature, fashioning weapons to fend it off, while Amelia dismisses his fears as childish delusions amid her own spiralling depression.

As the story unfolds, the Babadook infiltrates their reality. Shadows elongate unnaturally, Amelia hallucinates grotesque figures, and the entity’s signature top hat and coat become symbols of inescapable dread. Key scenes amplify this: the kitchen confrontation where Amelia’s frustration erupts into violence against Samuel, or the basement climax where she confronts the manifestation of her suppressed rage. Kent draws from gothic traditions, echoing the haunted house motifs of early horror like The Haunting (1963), but grounds it in postnatal depression and societal expectations of maternal perfection.

The film’s production history adds layers; shot on a shoestring budget in Adelaide, Australia, it faced distribution hurdles before premiering at Venice Film Festival. Legends of the Babadook stem not from folklore but from Kent’s script, inspired by her mother’s struggles with mental illness. This personal touch elevates the narrative, making grief a domestic invader rather than a distant myth.

A Family Tree Rotting from the Roots

Hereditary expands the familial fracture to generational scales. Annie Graham (Toni Collette), a miniaturist artist obsessed with preserving moments in perfect scale models, loses her secretive mother Ellen. What begins as a sombre funeral spirals into chaos following the decapitation of her daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro) in a freak car accident. Grief compounds as son Peter (Alex Wolff) withdraws, husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) unravels, and Annie uncovers her family’s occult heritage tied to demon worship.

Aster meticulously builds dread through everyday rituals turned profane: Charlie’s tongue-clicking tic, the beheading sequence’s unbearable tension, and the attic seance where Annie channels her daughter with horrifying consequences. Paimon, the demon summoned through Ellen’s cult, embodies inherited trauma—grief not just personal but predestined. The film’s narrative peaks in a cult ritual revealing Peter as the vessel, blending folk horror with psychological disintegration in a finale reminiscent of The Wicker Man (1973) yet infused with modern familial dysfunction.

Produced by A24 with a modest $10 million budget, Hereditary grossed over $80 million, propelled by word-of-mouth terror. Aster drew from his own family anxieties, scripting the possession as a metaphor for mental illness passing down bloodlines, challenging viewers to question where grief ends and possession begins.

Monsters Woven from Mourning

Both films literalise grief as a monster, but diverge in form and function. The Babadook is intimate, a top-hatted specter born from Amelia’s suppressed emotions, popping from walls like a nightmare jack-in-the-box. It demands Amelia acknowledge her pain, culminating in a fragile coexistence where she feeds it worms in the basement—a poignant nod to therapy’s ongoing labour. Hereditary’s Paimon, conversely, is cosmic and inevitable, a kingly demon feasting on generational sacrifices, indifferent to individual pleas.

This contrast highlights grief’s duality: personal versus inherited. In The Babadook, the creature is Amelia’s projection, exorcised through confrontation; in Hereditary, it predates the Grahams, thriving on their denial. Kent’s monster educes empathy, its final form almost pitiable, while Aster’s evokes cosmic horror à la Lovecraft, where human suffering fuels elder gods.

Symbolism abounds: the Babadook’s book parallels fairy tales weaponised against children, while Hereditary’s miniatures underscore futile control over chaos. Both use domestic spaces—kitchens, bedrooms—as battlegrounds, inverting safety into siege.

Mothers: Vessels of Visceral Horror

Essie Davis and Toni Collette deliver career-defining turns as grief-ravaged matriarchs. Davis’s Amelia devolves from exhausted caregiver to feral antagonist, her scream in the hallway scene—a guttural howl of accumulated fury—crystallises maternal breakdown. Collette’s Annie, meanwhile, oscillates between hysteria and icy detachment, her seance possession blending ecstasy and agony in a performance evoking Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence (1974).

Davis embodies the isolation of fresh widowhood, her physicality—sunken eyes, trembling hands—mirroring clinical depression. Collette channels compounded loss, her body contorting in unnatural poses during trances, symbolising grief’s corporeal takeover. Both actresses improvise raw emotion, with Davis drawing from real postpartum struggles and Collette researching dissociative disorders.

Their arcs intersect in rage against surviving children: Amelia’s near-murder of Samuel mirrors Annie’s subconscious orchestration of Peter’s torment. Yet redemption flickers—Amelia’s partial acceptance versus Annie’s total surrender—posing grief as conquerable foe or inexorable fate.

Visual Symphonies of Suffering

Cinematographers Charlotte Kier (Babadook) and Pawel Pogorzelski (Hereditary) master light and shadow to externalise inner turmoil. Kent’s monochrome palette, with stark contrasts in the family home, evokes German Expressionism, shadows swallowing Amelia like the Babadook itself. Long takes in confined spaces heighten paranoia, the camera lingering on empty doorways pregnant with threat.

Aster employs wide-angle lenses for disorienting vertigo, especially in Charlie’s decapitation drive, where foreground miniatures blur into nightmarish scale shifts. Incandescent lighting bathes cult scenes in hellish glows, while the Graham house— a modernist maze—mirrors emotional labyrinths. Both films shun jump scares for slow-burn dread, mise-en-scène laden with symbols: crooked picture frames in Babadook, decapitated bird heads in Hereditary.

These choices root supernatural in psychological realism, proving grief distorts perception as surely as any hallucination.

Sound: The Scream Beneath the Silence

Audio design amplifies isolation. In The Babadook, the creature’s rasping “Ba… ba… dook! DOOK!”—voiced by Kent—grates like nails on psyche, layered over creaking floors and Amelia’s stifled sobs. Silence punctuates violence, Samuel’s screams piercing domestic hush.

Hereditary’s soundscape, by Colin Stetson, throbs with dissonant reeds and sub-bass rumbles, mimicking panic attacks. Charlie’s clucking, the levitating throne’s grind—each sonic cue foreshadows doom, culminating in the silence-shattering finale wail.

Both harness sound for embodiment: grief as auditory haunt, refusing quietude.

Enduring Echoes in Horror’s Canon

The Babadook became a queer icon, its monster a metaphor for depression’s closet-dwelling persistence, spawning memes and Halloween costumes. Hereditary ignited A24’s prestige horror era, inspiring films like Midsommar (2019) and The Witch (2015). Together, they shift horror from slashers to therapy sessions, validating mental health narratives.

Production tales enrich lore: Kent battled funding sexism; Aster endured set hex rumours. Censorship skirted both—Babadook’s intensity, Hereditary’s gore—yet they endured, proving grief’s universality transcends controversy.

Effects: Crafting the Uncanny from the Unseen

Practical effects ground the ethereal. The Babadook’s creature suits and prosthetics by Odd Studio evoke silent-era ghouls, animations in the pop-up book adding handmade charm. Minimal CGI ensures tactility, Amelia’s makeup conveying sleepless erosion.

Hereditary

escalates with prosthetic decapitations, headless torsos by Spectral Motion, and fire effects doubling as metaphor. Charlie’s puppetry in visions blurs life-death, Paimon’s idol a tangible curse. Both prioritise analogue authenticity, making grief’s manifestations feel invasively real.

These techniques elevate metaphor to monstrosity, proving low-fi ingenuity trumps digital excess.

Director in the Spotlight

Jennifer Kent, born in 1969 in Brisbane, Australia, emerged from acting roots to become a horror auteur. Trained at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, she appeared in films like Heaven’s Burning (1997) before pivoting to writing and directing shorts such as Door (2005), which presaged The Babadook’s themes. Influenced by Mario Bava and Roman Polanski, Kent’s feature debut The Babadook (2014) garnered international acclaim, earning her Best Director at the AACTA Awards.

Her career highlights include scripting The Nightingale (2018), a brutal colonial revenge tale starring Aisling Franciosi, which won her Venice’s Silver Lion. Kent directed episodes of Spooks and EastEnders, honing tension in television. Upcoming projects like Him (TBA) with Marlon Wayans signal Hollywood expansion. Filmography: Monster (2005, short)—psychological thriller; The Babadook (2014)—grief horror breakthrough; The Nightingale (2018)—historical brutality; Him (TBA)—possession narrative. Kent’s oeuvre probes female rage and trauma, cementing her as a vital voice in genre cinema.

Actor in the Spotlight

Toni Collette, born Antonia Collette on 1 November 1972 in Sydney, Australia, rose from stage to screen superstardom. Discovered in Wild Orchid (1989) after gatecrashing an audition, she exploded with Muriel’s Wedding (1994), earning an Oscar nod for her breakout as misfit Muriel Heslop. Influences include Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett; her chameleon versatility spans drama, comedy, horror.

Awards abound: Golden Globe for The Sixth Sense (1999), Emmy for Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006), AACTA for Hereditary. Notable roles: Lynn Sear in The Sixth Sense—haunted mother; Beth in Little Miss Sunshine (2006)—dysfunctional parent; Joy in Hereditary (2018)—grief incarnate. Filmography: Spotlight (1995)—ABBA-infused comedy; The Boys (1998)—clubland drama; About a Boy (2002)—romantic comedy; In Her Shoes (2005)—sisterly reconciliation; The Way Way Back (2013)—coming-of-age mentor; Hereditary (2018)—horror pinnacle; Knives Out (2019)—murder mystery; Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021)—animated poignancy; 100% Pregnancy series (forthcoming). Collette’s intensity, especially in Hereditary, affirms her as horror’s preeminent maternal force.

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