What was the last movie you've seen?

[Sano]

Clerks II

[emwearz]

Clerks II

Noise noise noise!

[REPO Man]

Even better than the first one. And considering I saw this on my laptop and saw the first one in theaters, that's saying something.

Seriously gotta catch up on the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

[Luke]

VACATION red band trailer

[Luke]

THE BABADOOK

It may be 50% REQUIEM FOR A DREAM and 50% foreshadowing, but it is 100% hilarious.

The spoilers below aren't really spoilers, but just in case you didn't see the trailer or have not read a two sentence synopsis of the movie I'll use a spoiler tag anyway.

Haunted house, crazy Mom, silly kid. But they manage to stretch that into an hour and a half of nonsense involving more rough cut edits than an Arofonsky film. This movie even includes the dilating pupil shot, plus the crazy lady watching late night tv montage. It's labeled as a horror movie, but I couldn't find one thing that was scary nor original.

Every "scare" is an overdone and mundane cliche. Bugs, dead animals, some little twat being mean, shadows, flickering lights, a ghost using the force, the forbidden room, spooky voices, the usual.

On a positive note, the movie is polarizing as it was a complete laugh fest for me as others have called it "effective". It was effective at making roll my eyes and laugh, but people do truly think it is a scary film. The acting isn't bad either, as far as "descent into madness" acting goes, but again, nothing original.

One major flaw this film has is the characters in it. There really are only two, unless you count the ghost. The Mom and son. Yet we get so many characters that are there and then thrown away that make no impact on the story whatsoever. We have the Mom's boss who shows up and that's about it. We have a love interest who shows up, and leaves. We have a Sister who is only around so her daughter gets her nose broken. She leaves too. We have a neighbor, who to me was the shining star of the film, but spends most of her time on screen watching television. And we also have the dead husband who gets in a car accident, is mentioned a few times, and has a scene where his head inexplicably gets chopped in half. There's also a scene that involves masturbation which only exists to make people think the film is edgy, but I've seen much edgier scenes in an episode of Friends.

Not once was there a scene I hadn't already seen from another movie. No spine tingling, no suspense, no inspiration. I was hoping that the book Babadook would play out as the Mom did kill the dog, but other than that it was meaningless. And if the ghost was locked in the closet, why did the ghost put the book back together? And why that four minutes completely wasted on the Mom going to a police station. So many things in this film had zero purpose.

Actual spoilers ahead: So the Mom pukes out some stuff, which may or may not be the ghost. It isn't explained. And the ending is that life is great and she feeds "something" worms. ... ... Um, okay. That's the resolution. The Mom vomits, feeds a nothing worms. Maybe she feeds the whatever worms, as that isn't explained either. The force just pulls a bowl of worms into a shadow.

[Jmustang1968]

The Babadook... I wasn't as high on it as some others here, but I also wasn't as down on it as you are Luke.

The ending was mostly a metaphor for dealing with depression and despair. The Babadook was just a physical representation. I saw the ending as her burying the depression and despair in the attic, but still recognizing it is there and feeding it a little, but it is conquered and under control. Once she stepped up and confronted it and bested the creature, she broke its will. I didn't find the movie to be all that scary either, but it was entertaining.

[Luke]

The ending was mostly a metaphor for dealing with depression and despair. The Babadook was just a physical representation. I saw the ending as her burying the depression and despair in the attic, but still recognizing it is there and feeding it a little, but it is conquered and under control. Once she stepped up and confronted it and bested the creature, she broke its will. I didn't find the movie to be all that scary either, but it was entertaining.

So she feeds her neurosis by having her son dig worms and them put them in a bowl? And she overcame her issues by killing her dog and having her son stab her and tie her up while she screamed obscenities and tried to kill him?

That's what happened, and it makes zero sense.

Maybe twenty minutes of the entire movie were relevant, as the rest was really terrible filler. The only thing that remotely resembled horror was the book itself. I kept waiting for the book to reveal something, but nope. And movies don't have to spell it out for you, but in a movie so convoluted as this it wouldn't hurt to show the book near the end of the movie revealing that the Mother was the author, as she did "write some things". Or they could at least have hinted at that, but instead it's just a mystery book that has the power to rewrite itself and tell the future.

I'm being a bit harsh as horror movies should be scary and not boring and predictable. Being in a car only to realize a hornet is also in your car is way scarier than anything in babadook.

[jp1]

Don't like Babadook at all.

And the worst was the weird voice calling Babadook...dook...dook...So stupid.

I did enjoy "It Follows" though. Nice throwback style with fresh actors who did a pretty good job and some real suspense without being hokey. Not really horror exactly, but a good movie in my opinion. I like the camera work too. Considering the budget, they did a hell of a job.

[Jmustang1968]

The ending was mostly a metaphor for dealing with depression and despair. The Babadook was just a physical representation. I saw the ending as her burying the depression and despair in the attic, but still recognizing it is there and feeding it a little, but it is conquered and under control. Once she stepped up and confronted it and bested the creature, she broke its will. I didn't find the movie to be all that scary either, but it was entertaining.

So she feeds her neurosis by having her son dig worms and them put them in a bowl? And she overcame her issues by killing her dog and having her son stab her and tie her up while she screamed obscenities and tried to kill him?

That's what happened, and it makes zero sense.

Maybe twenty minutes of the entire movie were relevant, as the rest was really terrible filler. The only thing that remotely resembled horror was the book itself. I kept waiting for the book to reveal something, but nope. And movies don't have to spell it out for you, but in a movie so convoluted as this it wouldn't hurt to show the book near the end of the movie revealing that the Mother was the author, as she did "write some things". Or they could at least have hinted at that, but instead it's just a mystery book that has the power to rewrite itself and tell the future.

I'm being a bit harsh as horror movies should be scary and not boring and predictable. Being in a car only to realize a hornet is also in your car is way scarier than anything in babadook.

The worms thing is her acknowledging its existence, but keeping it down and locked away. She didn't overcome it by killing the dog and trying to kill her son, that is when it had full control of her. That was a part of the struggle where she was losing and near lost. The love and support from her son even through the evil, helped her pull out, and she mustered the strength to defeat him in the room. This is when the shadow was growing and she was yelling at it etc... She then finally conquered it at that point.

Not saying it was terribly profound or anything, but it made about as much sense as most other movies.

[Luke]

The worms thing is her acknowledging its existence, but keeping it down and locked away. She didn't overcome it by killing the dog and trying to kill her son, that is when it had full control of her. That was a part of the struggle where she was losing and near lost. The love and support from her son even through the evil, helped her pull out, and she mustered the strength to defeat him in the room. This is when the shadow was growing and she was yelling at it etc... She then finally conquered it at that point.

Not saying it was terribly profound or anything, but it made about as much sense as most other movies.

But why worms? What's the point of keeping her depression alive? These questions are reaching for answers that the movie isn't smart enough to not only answer, but even address. That's one of the many reasons the movie is so pointless from start to finish. It has no story to tell.

Bullshit on the "it made as much sense as other movies". BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA made much more sense than babdook. Babdook relies on frantic cuts and cheap cliches to keep your eyes open. The story is awful, it isn't scary, and does absolutely nothing new. And even worse it doesn't improve on any existing horror movies.

The entire "she conquered her fear" is dumb as well as the fear was on the son for the first act. Mostly on the second act as well.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again; I like Full House and everyone should have opinions on darned near everything. But I will also say Full House was a terrible show that I liked because it was so terrible. I see no redeeming qualities with babadook.

Failed to mention I watched THE THREE AMIGOS.

"Smile"