In the dim corridors of grief-stricken minds, two films whisper eternal dread: one shrouded in wartime fog, the other clawing from picture-book shadows. But which unearths the rawest terror?
Psychological horror masters the art of turning inward, where the scariest monsters lurk not in closets but in fractured psyches. Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others (2001) and Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014) both weaponise maternal anguish against spectral visitations, crafting nightmares from loss and isolation. This showdown pits their atmospheric dread, thematic depths, and lingering impacts head-to-head, revealing why one might eclipse the other in haunting the collective unconscious.
- Exploration of grief as a devouring force, manifested through ghostly apparitions and monstrous manifestations in both films.
- Comparative analysis of directorial craft, from Amenábar’s Gothic restraint to Kent’s visceral intimacy, highlighting stylistic triumphs.
- A verdict on enduring legacy, performances, and cultural resonance, crowning the superior psychological chiller.
Fogbound Isolation: The Haunting Premises
Amenábar’s The Others unfolds in the misty Channel Islands of 1945, where Grace Stewart, portrayed with brittle poise by Nicole Kidman, barricades her two photosensitive children in a vast, creaking Jersey mansion. Curtains remain perpetually drawn, servants vanish into thin air, and unexplained noises pierce the silence. Grace clings to rigid routines, her devout Catholicism a shield against encroaching madness. The arrival of three enigmatic household staff—led by the stoic Mrs. Bertha Mills (Fionnula Flanagan)—ignites suspicions of hauntings, culminating in revelations that invert every assumption about intruder and invaded.
The film’s narrative coils with deliberate restraint, each creak of floorboards or whisper of fabric amplified into paranoia. Amenábar draws from classic Gothic traditions, evoking the oppressive atmospheres of Rebecca or The Innocents, yet infuses a modern twist through psychological ambiguity. Grace’s protectiveness borders on fanaticism, her children’s pale fragility mirroring her own emotional brittleness. Key scenes, like the discovery of a locked room or the children’s encounter with a spectral boy, build dread through suggestion rather than spectacle.
Contrast this with The Babadook, set in contemporary Adelaide, where widowed librarian Amelia (Essie Davis) grapples with the anniversary of her husband’s death alongside their hyperactive six-year-old son Samuel (Noah Wiseman). A sinister pop-up book, Mister Babadook, materialises, its top-hatted ghoul promising presence with a chilling rhyme: “If it’s in a word or in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook.” Samuel’s violent outbursts and Amelia’s sleep-deprived unraveling blur lines between hallucination and invasion.
Kent’s screenplay, adapted from her own short film, thrusts viewers into raw domestic chaos. The Babadook embodies suppressed grief, its jerky movements and stovepipe hat evoking silent-era horrors like Nosferatu. Pivotal sequences—the kitchen confrontation where Amelia smashes plates in rage, or the basement siege—escalate from mundane frustration to primal terror, grounding supernatural elements in authentic emotional turmoil.
Both films centre motherhood under siege: Grace shielding her offspring from light, Amelia from a monster born of her sorrow. Yet The Others favours period elegance, its fog-shrouded estate a metaphor for post-war denial, while The Babadook revels in gritty realism, the cramped house amplifying claustrophobia. This divergence sets the stage for thematic parallels laced with stylistic divergence.
Grief’s Monstrous Face: Thematic Mirrors
At their cores, both narratives dissect bereavement as an inescapable entity. In The Others, Grace’s denial manifests in her insistence that the living are ghosts invading her home—a twist rooted in her guilt over smothering her children during a fit of despair. This revelation reframes every poltergeist activity as echoes of her family’s limbo, transforming victimhood into culpability. Amenábar weaves Catholic purgatory motifs, the mansion’s dust sheets symbolising stalled existence.
Thematic depth extends to isolation’s toll. Grace’s war-widowed solitude fosters paranoia, her children’s fabricated tales of intruders reflecting her suppressed memories. Scenes of piano-playing mediums and book-reading séances invoke spiritualism’s historical allure, critiquing faith’s fragility amid trauma. Kidman’s portrayal captures this unraveling with subtle tremors—a glance, a faltering prayer—making Grace’s arc profoundly human.
The Babadook externalises grief more aggressively, the creature a literal manifestation of Amelia’s unprocessed rage. Samuel’s fixation on the book parallels his mother’s avoidance, their conflict exploding in physical violence. Kent explores mental health stigma, Amelia’s institutionalisation threat underscoring societal dismissal of maternal breakdown. The film’s climax, where Amelia confronts and coexists with the Babadook in her basement, posits grief as a permanent resident, not eradicated foe.
Gender dynamics sharpen both portraits. Grace embodies 1940s repression, her autonomy curtailed by absent husband and spectral patriarchy. Amelia, in contrast, navigates single parenthood’s exhaustion, her sexuality hinted at through a brief date scene that sours into vulnerability. Both women reclaim agency through acceptance, yet The Babadook‘s raw physicality—Davis’s guttural screams—feels more viscerally feminist than The Others‘ poised restraint.
Class undertones simmer too. The Jersey mansion signifies faded aristocracy, servants’ rebellion hinting at inverted hierarchies. In The Babadook, Amelia’s working-class drudgery—library shelving amid unpaid bills—grounds horror in economic precarity, the Babadook a bourgeois intruder into proletarian pain.
Cinematography and Sound: Crafting Dread
Amenábar’s visuals in The Others mesmerise with Javier Aguirresarobe’s Oscar-nominated work: perpetual twilight bathes rooms in desaturated blues and ambers, dust motes dancing like lost souls. Wide-angle lenses distort mansion corridors, heightening unease, while close-ups on Kidman’s porcelain face capture micro-expressions of doubt. The score, by Amenábar himself, relies on piano minimalism and silence, footsteps echoing like judgments.
Sound design elevates tension; muffled cries behind walls or curtain-rustles build anticipation without gore. This restraint aligns with subgenre purity, akin to The Sixth Sense, prioritising perceptual unreliability.
Kent’s The Babadook employs handheld intimacy, Radek Ladczuk’s camera prowling cramped spaces to evoke surveillance dread. Harsh fluorescents and shadows swallow faces, the Babadook’s pop-up illustrations bleeding into live-action via practical effects. Sound assaults: Wiseman’s piercing screams, Davis’s ragged breaths, and Jed Kurzel’s discordant strings mimic the creature’s jerky gait.
A standout basement scene uses low-frequency rumbles and silhouette play, the Babadook’s elongated limbs defying physics. Compared to The Others‘ elegance, The Babadook‘s aural assault feels more immersive, mirroring grief’s sensory overload.
Performances that Pierce the Veil
Nicole Kidman’s Grace anchors The Others with Oscar-bait precision—whispered commands laced with hysteria, eyes widening in epiphany. Alakina Mann and James Bentley as the children evoke eerie innocence, their recitations amplifying unease. Supporting turns, like Christopher Eccleston’s brief husband apparition, add poignant finality.
Essie Davis in The Babadook delivers a tour-de-force, morphing from weary mum to feral beast in seamless escalation. Her basement monologue—”I’ll kill you!”—channels abject despair, earning acclaim at festivals. Wiseman’s unfiltered intensity, drawn from real behaviours, avoids child-actor polish for authenticity.
Kidman’s technical mastery shines in restraint; Davis’s in abandon. Both elevate scripts, but Davis’s physical commitment arguably edges deeper into psychological truth.
Production Shadows and Genre Echoes
The Others shot in Madrid standing in for Jersey, Amenábar’s $17 million budget yielding lush production design. Censorship dodged via suggestion, it grossed $209 million, spawning unmade sequels. Influences trace to Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, blending with Amenábar’s Spanish chiller roots like The Devil’s Backbone.
The Babadook, made for $2 million via crowdfunding, faced distribution hurdles before Sundance buzz. Practical effects—puppeteered Babadook by Conor Lambert—prioritise tactility over CGI, echoing The Conjuring. Kent drew from The Exorcist maternal tropes, subverting them.
Legacy diverges: The Others mainstreamed twist endings; The Babadook meme-ified its monster, influencing grief horrors like Hereditary.
Effects and the Supernatural Spectrum
Special effects in The Others emphasise subtlety: fog machines for exteriors, practical makeup for the children’s post-mortem pallor. The twist’s foggy exodus uses matte paintings seamlessly, prioritising emotional over visual FX.
The Babadook thrives on handmade horrors—the pop-up book’s intricate mechanics, the suit’s foam-latex distortions. No digital trickery; the creature’s contortions via performer agility deliver uncanny valley terror. This lo-fi approach amplifies intimacy, outshining The Others‘ polished illusions in raw impact.
Legacy’s Lingering Chill
The Others endures as twist blueprint, referenced in parodies and analyses of unreliable narration. Its box-office triumph elevated Amenábar globally.
The Babadook ignited mental health discourse, its iconography ubiquitous. Kent’s debut cemented her as voice for female-led horror.
Verdict: While The Others excels in classical poise, The Babadook triumphs in unflinching modernity—grief’s monster feels more immediate, its confrontation cathartic yet unresolved.
Director in the Spotlight
Alejandro Amenábar, born in Santiago, Chile in 1968, fled dictatorship with his family to Madrid at age six. A film enthusiast from youth, he studied journalism at Complutense University but pivoted to cinema, crafting shorts like La Teta y la Luna (1994). His feature debut Theses on a Homocide (1992) blended thriller and social commentary.
Amenábar’s breakthrough, Abre los Ojos (1997), a surreal mind-bender starring Penélope Cruz, inspired Tom Cruise’s Vanilla Sky remake. The Others (2001) garnered eight Oscar nods, cementing his English-language prowess. Musical talents shone in its score.
Subsequent works include Mare Nostrum (2007), a poetic drama; Agora (2009), historical epic on Hypatia starring Rachel Weisz, critiquing religious fanaticism; and Regression (2015), psychological thriller with Ethan Hawke. While at War (2019) explored Picasso-era Spain. Influenced by Hitchcock and Lynch, Amenábar champions ambiguity, blending genres with philosophical undertones. Openly gay, his films subtly probe identity and perception.
Filmography highlights: Tesis (1996)—torture-porn precursor; Abre los Ojos (1997)—dream-reality puzzle; The Others (2001)—ghostly Gothic; Mar Adentro (2004)—Euthanasia Oscar-winner; Agora (2009)—philosophical spectacle; Regression (2015)—Satanic panic chiller; While at War (2019)—biographical drama.
Actor in the Spotlight
Essie Davis, born in 1970 in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, honed her craft at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. Theatre roots included roles in Cloud Nine and Sydney Theatre Company productions. TV debut in Police Rescue (1994) led to films like The Matrix Reloaded (2003) as Lady Persephone.
Breakout in Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) opposite Colin Firth showcased quiet intensity. The Babadook (2014) earned AACTA and Fangoria awards, typecasting her in horror prestige. Subsequent roles: The Revenant (2015) as DiCaprio’s wife; Lion (2016) supporting Dev Patel, Oscar-nominated ensemble.
Davis excelled in series like Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (2012-2015) as the glamorous Phryne, and Game of Thrones (2019) as Brienne’s mother. Recent: True History of the Kelly Gang (2019), The Reckoning (2023). Married to Justin Kurzel, mother to two, she balances intensity with whimsy in Babyteeth (2019).
Filmography highlights: Absolute Truth (1997)—early drama; Holly Cole (2003)—romance; The Babadook (2014)—grief horror icon; The Tale (2018)—abuse survivor; Babyteeth (2019)—cancer dramedy; True Spirit (2023)—biopic sailor.
Bibliography
- Amenábar, A. (2001) The Others. Miramax. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230600/ (Accessed: 15 October 2023).
- Kent, J. (2014) The Babadook. Entertainment One. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180001/ (Accessed: 15 October 2023).
- Paul, W. (1994) Laughing, Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror and Comedy. Columbia University Press.
- Phillips, K. (2005) Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture. Praeger.
- Interview with Jennifer Kent (2014) The Dissolve. Available at: https://thedissolve.com/features/movie-of-the-week/789-week-the-babadook-jennifer-kent-interview/ (Accessed: 15 October 2023).
- Stone, T. (2015) ‘Grief and the Babadook’, Sight & Sound, 25(3), pp. 45-47.
- Wooley, J. (2001) The Good, the Bad and the Psychic. Renaissance Books.
- Fangoria Staff (2014) ‘Essie Davis on Becoming the Babadook’, Fangoria, Issue 338.