Here’s all you really need to know about this Australian horror film: William Friedkin (director of The Exorcist) wrote on Twitter, “Psycho, Alien, Diabolique, and now THE BABADOOK. I've never seen a more terrifying film. It will scare the hell out of you as it did me.” Here’s my take on it: I saw it at a midnight showing recently, plopped myself down, ordered my meal…and could not eat for two hours straight. I was that unsettled and ill by it. It’s a perfect horror movie, as good as any I’ve seen in a very, very long time, and it will keep you looking over your shoulder and under your bed and in your closet for a solid week. (Oh, and if you’re wondering, the most frightening film I’ve ever seen in my entire life was “Insidious.” I saw it in Scottsdale, AZ late one night a few years ago, traveling by myself and viewing it in a theater with no one else. Afterward, I had to drive to the Grand Canyon and sleep in a vacated dormitory ALL BY MYSELF for four consecutive nights. Two dozen rooms, and I was the only occupant. There was no TV, no internet, no Wi-Fi, no cell service, no HVAC, no nothing. Each night after I concluded my workshop (which occurred far across the National Park), I would walk back to the war-era dormitory through a crunchy, boundaryless, absolutely pitch-black-inky forest—all alone—to this single room at the top of creaky, rickety, ancient wood stairs. I would draw back curtains to an 8’ wide window, beneath which was only forest, and above which only starry sky, and strive mightily to fall asleep in the cool breeze, hoping against hope that Insidious had not followed me there.)
