When grief devours the soul, it births monsters that no exorcism can banish.

Two Australian and American masterpieces of modern horror, The Babadook (2014) and Hereditary (2018), stand as towering achievements in psychological terror, each wielding maternal anguish as their sharpest blade. Jennifer Kent’s debut and Ari Aster’s breakout both transform personal loss into visceral nightmares, inviting viewers to question where sorrow ends and the supernatural begins. This comparison peels back their layers, revealing shared dreads and divergent paths in cinema’s exploration of the fractured psyche.

• Both films centre on mothers besieged by grief, manifesting as otherworldly entities that blur reality and madness.
• The Babadook favours claustrophobic intimacy and pop-up book menace, while Hereditary unleashes operatic grandeur and familial cults.
• Their legacies redefine psychological horror, proving trauma’s grip endures beyond the screen.

Monsters from Mourning: A Tale of Two Traumas

At their core, The Babadook and Hereditary dissect the raw wound of bereavement through the lens of motherhood. In Kent’s film, Amelia (Essie Davis) grapples with the first anniversary of her husband’s death in a car crash that also orphaned her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman). The Babadook emerges from a children’s book that materialises unbidden, its top-hatted silhouette a metaphor for repressed fury. Samuel’s erratic behaviour amplifies Amelia’s isolation, as she teeters between nurturing and snapping under pressure. The narrative unfolds in their creaking home, a pressure cooker of sleepless nights and escalating hauntings.

Contrast this with Hereditary, where Annie Graham (Toni Collette) mourns her secretive mother Ellen, whose death unravels the family. The film opens with a miniature model of their home, symbolising control’s illusion, before plunging into decapitations, seances, and demonic possessions. Peter (Alex Wolff), the son, bears the brunt of guilt after a tragic accident, while Charlie (Milly Shapiro), the eerie daughter, channels inherited darkness. Aster expands the domestic into dynastic horror, revealing a cultish legacy tied to Paimon, a demon craving male embodiment.

Both stories hinge on everyday objects weaponised by grief: the Babadook’s pop-up book versus Hereditary’s heirloom necklaces and decapitated pigeon heads. These talismans ground the supernatural in the tactile, making terror feel intimately personal. Amelia’s denial evolves into confrontation, forcing her to coexist with the creature in the basement, a stark acceptance of enduring pain. Annie’s arc spirals into ritualistic frenzy, her agency eroded by predestined evil.

The films’ synopses demand detail for their psychological depth. In The Babadook, Samuel’s obsession precedes the entity’s arrival; he crafts weapons from wood and glass, foreshadowing Amelia’s violent outburst with a kitchen knife. Key scenes, like the kitchen siege where the Babadook contorts Amelia’s screams into its gravelly voice, showcase sound design’s primacy. Production drew from Kent’s short film Monster, expanding personal loss into universal dread, shot on 35mm for gritty realism amid Adelaide’s gothic suburbs.

Hereditary layers its plot with meticulous misdirection. Annie’s support group confession reveals her mother’s manipulative hold, echoed in Charlie’s tic-ridden whispers and bird-like scuttles. The car crash sequence, Peter’s drowsy drive after Charlie’s chocolate binge, erupts in guttural horror, her severed head thumping the windshield. Aster’s script, honed over years, incorporates real occult lore from the Lesser Key of Solomon, blending it with familial dysfunction. Filmed in Utah’s stark landscapes, it amplifies emotional vastness.

Grief’s Spectral Forms: Metaphor or Malevolence?

Psychological horror thrives on ambiguity, and both films master this tightrope. The Babadook posits the creature as Amelia’s projection of rage towards Samuel, her husband’s memory, and widowhood’s drudgery. Critics hail it as depression’s allegory, with the Babadook’s rhyme "If it’s in a word or in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook" encapsulating mental illness’s persistence. Yet supernatural hints, like the book rewriting itself, flirt with literal monstrosity, refusing easy rationalisation.

Hereditary leans harder into the infernal, substantiating hauntings with cult mechanics and demonology. Paimon’s invocation through decapitation rituals ties personal grief to cosmic conspiracy, diminishing psychological solace. Annie’s doubt fractures under evidence: floating light switches, Charlie’s spirit in the attic. Aster draws from his anxieties, crafting a film where therapy fails against ancient forces, challenging viewers’ secular assumptions.

Comparative thematic heft emerges in motherhood’s crucible. Amelia’s exhaustion mirrors real postpartum struggles, her slap to Samuel a breaking point rawly captured in Davis’s performance. Hereditary elevates this to generational curse, Annie crafting miniatures as futile control, her sleepwalking frenzy birthing unholy communion. Both indict societal silence on maternal mental health, using horror to voice the unspeakable.

Class undertones simmer beneath. Amelia’s working-class toil, folding library books amid mouldy walls, contrasts the Grahams’ affluent detachment, their modular home a sterile facade. These backdrops enrich the psyche’s siege, grounding cosmic dread in socioeconomic strain.

Cinesthetic Assaults: Sound, Shadow, and Shock

Stylistically, Kent opts for restraint, her black-and-white influenced shadows and Dutch angles evoking German Expressionism. The Babadook’s jerky movements, achieved via practical effects and stop-motion, mimic silent film’s uncanny valley. Soundscape reigns: creaking floorboards swell into orchestral stings, Davis’s shrieks distorted into the monster’s maw, immersing audiences in Amelia’s fraying nerves.

Aster counters with symphonic excess, Pawel Pogorzelski’s cinematography employing long takes and overheads to dwarf characters. Hereditary’s effects blend practical gore—Collette’s hammer-wielding rage—with subtle CGI for levitations, earning praise for restraint amid splatter. Brian Rowson’s score, with its pounding percussion and choral wails, propels dread, peaking in the film’s incendiary climax.

Iconic scenes crystallise differences. The Babadook’s basement showdown, Amelia force-feeding the creature dirt to subdue it, symbolises integration over eradication. Hereditary’s treehouse finale, Peter’s possession amid flames, delivers operatic tragedy, cultists bowing to the crowned king. Mise-en-scène details abound: Babadook’s top hat echoing Amelia’s absent husband, Hereditary’s yellow tones signifying Paimon’s hue.

Production hurdles shaped both. Kent faced Australian funding battles, her actors enduring grueling shoots with Wiseman’s naturalistic terror drawn from real fears. Aster battled A24’s expectations, reshooting for intensity, Collette’s immersion method yielding Oscar-buzzed hysteria.

Performances that Haunt the Hall of Fame

Essie Davis anchors The Babadook with feral authenticity, her Amelia devolving from prim librarian to wild-eyed warrior. Noah Wiseman’s unfiltered screams, coached sans deception, pierce hearts. Supporting turns, like Peta Mitchell’s kindly neighbour, heighten isolation.

Toni Collette’s Annie is transcendent, veering from composed sculptor to shrieking prophetess. Her seance convulsions, improvised with physical therapy, rival De Niro’s depths. Wolff’s haunted Peter and Shapiro’s inscrutable Charlie provide counterpoints, their chemistry familial yet fractured.

These portrayals elevate comparison: Davis embodies intimate breakdown, Collette epic unraveling. Both leverage non-actors’ edges—Wiseman’s debut, Shapiro’s debut—for raw vulnerability, proving psychological horror demands emotional nudity.

Legacies that Linger in the Collective Unconscious

The Babadook exploded at Sundance, birthing memes and merchandise, its creature a queer icon reclaimed from heteronormative grief. Influencing Smile and Barbarian, it cemented Australia’s horror resurgence alongside The Nightingale.

Hereditary grossed $80 million on a $10 million budget, spawning Midsommar‘s daylight companion. Its cult status fuels A24’s prestige wave, echoing in The Witch and Relic, redefining family horror post-The Conjuring.

Together, they bridge 1970s art-horror like Carrie with millennial anxieties, proving grief’s universality transcends borders. Censorship battles—UK cuts for Babadook’s violence, Hereditary’s NC-17 flirtations—underscore their potency.

Subgenre evolution shines: from slasher catharsis to trauma immersion, they prioritise aftermath over kills, influencing streaming era’s slow-burns.

Special Effects: Practical Phantoms and Demonic Detail

Kent’s low-budget ingenuity shines in practical prosthetics for the Babadook’s elongated limbs, wire work for wall crawls, and forced perspective for looming menace. No CGI dominates, preserving tactile horror amid rain-slicked nights.

Aster blends eras: animatronic heads for Charlie’s fate, practical blood geysers in the climax, subtle VFX for apparitions. Effects supervisor Chris Mueller crafted the clacking tongue from dental appliances, grounding the grotesque in craft.

These choices amplify psychology: visible seams remind of constructed fears, mirroring characters’ fragile realities.

Jennifer Kent in the Spotlight

Jennifer Kent, born 11 March 1972 in Brisbane, Australia, emerged from acting roots into directing with a voice uniquely attuned to human fragility. Trained at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), she honed skills in Babe: Pig in the City (1998) and TV’s All Saints. Influences span David Lynch’s surrealism and Roman Polanski’s claustrophobia, fused with Aussie gothic from Pikie.

Her short Monster (2005), starring Ben Mendelsohn, presaged The Babadook, earning festival acclaim. Feature debut The Babadook (2014) propelled her globally, praised for grief’s unflinching portrait. The Nightingale (2018), a brutal colonial revenge tale with Aisling Franciosi, garnered Venice Critics’ Week honours, tackling Tasmania’s Black War.

Kent’s television shines in The Waiting Room (2015) and Holman episodes. Upcoming: Essex and Raven’s End. Awards include AACTA for The Nightingale, with advocacy for women filmmakers via Directing Change. Her oeuvre blends horror with historical reckoning, cementing her as Down Under’s boldest auteur.

Comprehensive filmography: Monster (2005, short); The Babadook (2014); The Nightingale (2018); Holman (2022, TV movie). She continues mentoring via AFTRS, her vision unyielding.

Ari Aster in the Spotlight

Ari Aster, born 13 July 1986 in New York to Jewish-American parents, channelled childhood neuroses into horror mastery. Cornell-educated in film, his thesis The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011) shocked with incestuous Oedipal dread. Influences: Bergman, Polanski, Kubrick, evident in familial dissections.

Hereditary (2018) marked his explosive debut, earning Cannes acclaim and box-office triumph. Midsommar (2019) inverted darkness into sunlit paganism, starring Florence Pugh. Beau Is Afraid (2023), with Joaquin Phoenix, twisted Kafkaesque odyssey into three-hour epic, dividing critics yet captivating.

Shorts like Synchronicity (2010) and Munchie showcase early command. Producing via Square Peg, he backs The Strange Adventures of Post-October. No awards yet, but Hereditary’s script nods signal promise. Personal losses infuse authenticity, his horror a therapy writ large.

Filmography: The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011, short); Hereditary (2018); Midsommar (2019); Beau Is Afraid (2023). Future projects whisper louder terrors.

Toni Collette in the Spotlight

Toni Collette, born 1 November 1972 in Sydney, rose from musical theatre to global stardom, her everymother menace defining dramatic range. NIDA graduate, debut in Spotlight (1989) led to Muriel’s Wedding (1994), earning AFI for manic bride.

Hollywood beckoned with The Sixth Sense (1999) Golden Globe-nominated ghost mum, then Hereditary (2018) unleashing primal fury. Indies like Jesus Henry Christ (2011), blockbusters The Way Way Back (2013), TV triumphs The United States of Tara (2009-11, Emmy win), Unbelievable (2019, Emmy nom).

Stage returns in A Long Day’s Journey into Night. Oscars eluded despite noms for The Sixth Sense, About a Boy (2002), Little Miss Sunshine (2006). Married to Dave Galafassi, mother of two, she champions mental health post-personal battles.

Filmography highlights: Muriel’s Wedding (1994); The Sixth Sense (1999); Hereditary (2018); Knives Out (2019); Dream Horse (2020). Versatility unmatched.

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