Ba Ba DoooOOOoooK! Who is that mysterious be-hatted man in the window! Is he a menacing demonic presence intent to ruin my life or is it alllll in my heeeeeaaaad? The answer is YES! Or no? Maybe? And what’s the difference anyway? Continuing Jacob’s demand that the Month of October be all about the spooky stuff, this week the daring duo review the themes of the creepy 2014 film, “The Babadook”. What does a secular spin on themes of possession and mental illness have to say to a Christian audience? Tune in to find out!
Resources
- Voyage Blog Entry – WHETHER IT’S IN A WORD OR IN A LOOK, YOU CAN’T GET RID OF THE BABADOOK’S POSSESSION HOOK!
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops entry on Exorcism
- Read the latest entry of the Voyage Blog!
Listen to the latest Voyage Podcast
Related Episodes
- “The Cabin in the Woods” – Destruction Via Deconstruction
- The Descent of the Decent – Underworld and Holy Saturday
- Jesus: the Scape-GOAT – part 1 & part 2
Transcript
Jacob (00:02.506)
So the Lord has graced us with a wonderful opening banter for this episode, Mike. You want me to tell you about it? Uh, it’s an act of God. So I come down into my basement to do the recording and my kids have all their video game stuff left all over the floor from the night before. And my dog took a big old steaming pile right on one of their headsets. And I snapped a photo of it.
mike (00:07.852)
Oh, oh, the Lord, huh? The Lord in quotes.
mike (00:18.795)
Yeah, your kids. Okay, sure. I’ll play along. I’ll play along.
mike (00:28.571)
Thanks for watching!
Jacob (00:30.586)
and I sent it to them and they were quite upset and I felt pretty good about yeah this is this is why we get the dog out and this is why we clean up our stuff they took a big old
mike (00:34.367)
And you said, this is a metaphor. This is a metaphor.
mike (00:46.915)
Oh wow. I thought you were going to say this is what, you know, this is, this is what your actual stuff is to me is just a big old pile of yeah. Yeah. That’s the metaphor. Yep. Absolutely. Excellent. Wow. That was, that was simply divine. Thank you. And it’s not even, it’s not even the Prophet episode. And it’s not even, not even the Prophet episode too.
Jacob (00:55.394)
Oh yeah, this is a message I’m trying to convey something to you. Yeah. Well you just noodle on it. Yeah There you go
Jacob (01:06.49)
Yeah, I found that happened right before this episode started to air. So I was like, well, I know
mike (01:14.943)
and yet we get this call. Well, on that note, yeah, I’ll welcome you, Jacob, and welcome all of you guys to this episode of the Voyage Podcast, where we’re gonna be, I don’t know, I guess we’re doing a little bit of monster in the house, but what do we mean by house? What do we mean by monster, right? Who is the monster? And we’re gonna be talking most specifically, I mean, we’ll bring some general ideas into here. We’re gonna do a little bit of exorcism stuff too, but.
Jacob (01:16.722)
Here we go.
Jacob (01:35.558)
Only time will tell.
mike (01:43.739)
But most specifically, what is the example we’re going to be going through? What’s the monster in this case, Jacob, that we’re going to be talking about?
Jacob (01:49.574)
Well, if you were paying close attention to my witty little joke in the opening, the Baba Duke. The Baba Duke, Duke.
mike (01:55.839)
Yes, so the cult classic, I guess you could call it at this point or the
Jacob (01:59.882)
Yeah, I think it’s destined to be a cult classic. Um, you know, maybe not enough time. It was like 2014, maybe I feel I’m going to say 2014. Uh, yeah, it’s about a decade. Yeah. You know, give it another 10 years. We’ll see. We’ll see if it’s got the cult status or maybe it’s just classic, you know, the nuances of these things, Mike.
mike (02:03.919)
How old is it anyway? Is it like 10 years old now or? Okay, so going on, yeah. Yeah, it’s about 10. If not, you know, at our age, we just round up. We round up, so.
mike (02:20.939)
I mean, well, and we are going to get into some of those, right? I mean, it obviously has, even if it’s not intentional, it’s definitely got some spiritual implications that we both have found interesting. And this is just yet another recommendation by Jacob that I had not really seen before, not really paid close attention to. That yes, he finally…
Jacob (02:40.118)
This month is my month, folks. When I was selling, yeah, well, honestly, Mike, you know, you want to do a Monster in the House theme. You’re like, let’s do something like Monster in the House. And I was like, I have got the movie for you, sir, because this one works on levels. And, uh,
mike (02:56.291)
Which, which just to back up really quick, I mean, if you haven’t, cause, um, uh, the, there’s going to be an episode on strictly just the genre of monster in the house. And so what I, when we refer to that, when we refer to monster in house, it’s a, a genre of horror movie or of, of movie of film where, you know, as, as the title says, there is a monster in the house. Now, what do we mean by monster? What do we mean by house? That’s what we’re going to kind of get into. And this movie, the Babadook kind of plays with those themes a little bit, plays with that idea.
But sorry to cut you off. Go ahead. Yeah.
Jacob (03:26.894)
Yeah, quite a bit I would say, I would argue. No, you know, this is a kind of a grueling movie. I mean, maybe some people wouldn’t feel that way. I know my wife basically refuses to watch it with me again because this is a movie about the relationship between a mother and her child, and that relationship is very strained. And it’s about mental illness, and you know,
mike (03:35.767)
Mm.
mike (03:51.227)
Mm.
Jacob (03:56.106)
Some of these things, yeah, grief, you know, all that stuff. And not everything applies to my wife. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying, you know, she’s grieves the fact that she’s married to me. Um, but like, Oh, that’s what it is. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The very.
mike (03:56.399)
About grief, about, yeah.
mike (04:05.763)
I was gonna say, no, it’s the idea of losing you, Jacob. That’s what it is, right? Because that’s in the story, in the premise, the mother slash wife has lost her husband and the father. And so that’s one of the things that we just, going into the story, has already been established. So.
Jacob (04:19.566)
Mm hmm. But it does such a visceral job of like ramping up the depression and grief and mental illness and straining the relationship between the mother and the child that my wife just like finds it icky. You know what I mean? She like doesn’t enjoy it. Yeah, and I don’t blame her. I don’t blame her, you know.
mike (04:37.084)
Mm-hmm. Well, no, she’s a… And it’s Amelia, right, the main character’s name, and she’s a sympathetic figure in every sense of the word. Like, sympathy in the sense that you are a compassionate figure in that you are… You do, you feel bad, you suffer with, you suffer for her throughout this movie.
Jacob (04:57.266)
I read somewhere that this movie is like, if the shining characters, Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall from that movie, the Stanley Kubrick flick, Amelia is both Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall in this movie. And I actually think is a perfect, that’s a perfect analogy, yeah.
mike (05:07.553)
Mm-hmm.
mike (05:14.691)
Which honestly, like, I was gonna say, if that’s your elevator pitch, I mean, to somebody who likes scary movies, who likes horror movies, that’s gotta be the best elevator pitch for the Babadook movie. Uh-huh.
Jacob (05:25.074)
Yeah, it’s this movie in a nutshell, absolutely. And instead of it being about a family trapped in an isolated like mountain hotel, they’re trapped right in the midst of society, right? They’re just so isolated and alienated from everyone around them. So even though they’re surrounded by humanity, the humanity can’t help. And there’s
mike (05:38.349)
Mm.
mike (05:44.087)
Mm-hmm. Which is a classic, I mean, that’s just a classic, like, movie kind of trope, too, of the whole, you know, I’m surrounded by people and yet I’m still lonely. Yeah.
Jacob (05:50.438)
A lot of dramas, a lot of, yeah, alienation. I mean, this is something, again, this is a 21st century flick, you know, and I think alienation is very poignant for a lot of audiences today. And so, you know, that’s what this movie speaks to.
mike (05:57.205)
Mm-hmm.
mike (06:06.257)
So let’s run through some of the other kind of expositional elements to this. If you want to just kind of go through the synopsis a little bit before we get into, well, I mean, until we get to the figure of the Babadook and then we can kind of examine that too.
Jacob (06:11.73)
You want to just go through the movie? Well, no, I mean, a little bit.
Sure, sure. You know, this movie actually straight up opens, we hinted at this, it opens with her dreaming about the death of her husband, she’s being driven to the hospital to give birth to their child, their son. And they get into a car accident, and her husband dies on the way to the hospital.
mike (06:35.311)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (06:49.214)
showing us that she is a single mother. Her son has behavior issues, right? And it’s kind of…
mike (06:59.151)
Some of it maybe because of the absence of the father and how the mom’s affected by it too.
Jacob (07:02.386)
Well, in the way that the mother is dealing with her grief, which is to say like not she’s not dealing with her grief. And so like he loves to go into the basement and she just put all of her husband’s stuff in the basement, right? No metaphors there. And, you know, the in the kid keeps going into the basement. That’s where he likes to play because he feels close. Yeah, that’s true. Well, the basements are never a good thing in horror movies, right? I mean, but anyway,
mike (07:09.225)
Mm.
mike (07:16.495)
Hmm.
mike (07:22.624)
Getting some cabin in the woods vibes a little bit too. Yeah
mike (07:29.291)
Yeah, no, exactly.
Jacob (07:32.27)
kid goes down there because that’s where all the dad stuff is and he feels close to his dad down there. I think early on you the movie does a really good job of tying the father and the child together thematically right because for the mother to see her son is to be reminded of her dead husband right and well and yeah and so she does yeah I mean so like think about that she doesn’t
mike (07:44.259)
Mm.
mike (07:53.791)
And to celebrate the birthday is a reminder of the.
Jacob (08:01.802)
doesn’t celebrate her son’s birthday. She instead has her son celebrate a birthday with his cousin, her sister’s child, and they have a co-birthday because the mother can’t stand on the day of her husband’s death, which happens to be her son’s birthday. There’s no celebrations going on, right? That’s how deeply traumatized she is by all of this. And throughout the movie
mike (08:19.711)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jacob (08:28.11)
It’s really heartbreaking. You know, like there’ll be like in the beginning, in the very beginning, he tries to give her like a really, really deep hug. And she like pushes them away because it triggers something in her. And she actually kind of snaps them a little bit and like, don’t do that. You know? Um, and you know, later on he’s like, I love you mom. And she’s like, me too. It’s like, Ooh, you know, like.
mike (08:36.298)
Mm-hmm. Mm.
mike (08:42.5)
Mm-hmm.
mike (08:48.683)
Mm. Yeah. I love spending time with you. That’s her. No, that’s the like classic, you know, friend zone response like Yeah, yeah.
Jacob (08:54.719)
Yeah, I know it’s the friendzone. She friendzones her kid basically. It’s, and it’s heartbreaking. I mean, it’s heartbreaking to watch this poor little kid who is legitimately the movie does sympathize with Amelia, the mother because like the kid is hard. It’s hard. And you know, there’s a lot of commentary.
mike (09:04.334)
Mm-hmm.
mike (09:09.939)
Mm-hmm. Well, that’s the thing too, is yeah, there’s no like, you know, at first you could see it as like, oh, is the mom the bad guy? You know, typical like, what is this? Did Freud make this movie? Or, you know, but you definitely, like you said, you sympathize very much in as a true way possible.
Jacob (09:20.322)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (09:24.702)
Well, because he’s spastic. He makes everything, everything the movie shows us in these early moments is showing us how hard her life is because of the behavior patterns of her child, right? And because she’s alone. Evanely, there’s a meme about that.
mike (09:38.668)
Why can’t he just be normal? Evidently, yeah. So just as a little bit of a background, we’ll pull the veil away for a second. I had seen the meme. I had not known what the movie was too. And then as I’m watching the movie, I had to text Jacob the meme and say, finally I know where the source of this is. And he had his snarky response of like, oh, glad I keep you around for the important stuff. But…
Jacob (09:59.63)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (10:05.83)
Yeah, yeah, I think I was saying, you know, I’m glad you’re getting I’m glad you’re getting a rich commentary for this movie out of this. But, you know, so anyway. Yeah, sure. There you go. Justified. This movie. Let’s see. So like, there’s a lot of tension developed between the mother and the child right out the gate, and then almost immediately. It’s a very efficient. This is not very long movie, you know, I think it’s like a salt.
mike (10:06.379)
Anyway, we’ll move on.
mike (10:11.268)
you
mike (10:14.959)
Cultural impact. Yeah. Yup.
mike (10:32.847)
They just find the book on the shelf, find a children’s book on the shelf and… Mm-hmm.
Jacob (10:33.87)
It’s like an hour and a half. Yeah, and this book appears out of kind of nowhere, Mr. Babadook. And so the child…
mike (10:42.391)
And he’s also, by the way, we haven’t even, he’s also suffering from like night terrors. He’s coming into our bed a lot. So he’s already established, there’s this monster in the house. There’s already this quote unquote monster in the house that he is, you know, whether he’s imagining or he is seeing something, he’s seeing reality, a deeper reality than maybe what we are, yeah.
Jacob (10:48.841)
She’s already, yeah. She has.
Jacob (10:59.838)
Yeah, classic check the closet check under the bed stuff, you know, coming interrupting her sleep coming into her bed at night, you know, so she can’t get any sleep, you know, and that just gets worse as the movie. Yeah, the lack of sleep.
mike (11:04.652)
And now, like you said, so sorry to…
mike (11:12.259)
That’s when I really started to sympathize with Amelia, by the way, as a father of young kids. That’s when I was like, you know what? I get it. I get it. I’m on her side. I’m on Amelia’s side. So that’s when…
Jacob (11:22.547)
And she’s very good. Listen, she’s I mean, outside of the you know, we kind of were a little unfair to Amelia and given all these like examples of her like friends owning her kid and things like that. She is not unkind to her child in the beginning of this movie. You can tell that she is just she loves her son, but she also is just so traumatized by the loss of her husband. And, you know, it’s just it’s not easy being a single mom, you know.
mike (11:45.033)
Mm.
mike (11:48.943)
By the way, another thing that I think is interesting, and we might bring it back up later on, but her work, working in a sort of like nursing home or rest home, working in a, yeah. So.
Jacob (11:56.174)
She works in a dementia ward, in the dementia ward of a nursing home, which is already extremely difficult work. It’s like everything in this lady’s life is.
mike (12:03.555)
So, but you already have a sort of parallel to these people who are, you know, for lack of a better term, like losing it, right? Like people who are becoming more disattached with reality, right? And so we see this kind of parallel between them who are physically, like their mind is deteriorating, and then we have her who is working with them, but she’s also kind of going through something very similar too. But now, finally, Mr. Babadook, yeah.
Jacob (12:11.371)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (12:20.11)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (12:28.522)
Yeah, and the movie. Sure, sure. Well, I’ll just I’ll throw one more note in there. Like the movie also does a good job, you know, because we said at the beginning that she’s isolated, right? And it shows good examples of how this isolation takes over her life, even though she’s surrounded by people. So like there is a co-worker that she works with who seems like a really nice guy, seems real compact, like seems like in the movie, obviously is like, oh, hey, love interest for Amelia.
And you can tell that she’s kind of into it, you know, like that’s cool. But the movie immediately quashes that. Like he shows up at her house, like with a surprise. She flowers, you know, and the kid is supposedly homesick, but he’s actually expelled from school or something along those lines. And, and, and so he’s like, Oh, I thought you were sick. And the kid has no filter. And he’s like, Oh, I’m not sick. And she’s like, Oh, he’s just so naughty. You know, anyway, and he gets weirded out.
mike (12:56.825)
Mm-hmm.
mike (13:02.956)
Mm-hmm.
Flowers I think, right?
Jacob (13:25.014)
Basically, he gets driven off by this weird tense relationship between the mother and her kid. And it’s just another nail in that kind of like, I don’t know, it’s a bad metaphor, but nail in the coffin of that. Yeah, the isolation coffin. There you go. I like it.
mike (13:31.491)
Mm.
Hmm. No, the isolation. Yeah, the isolation coffin, you know, whatever. Which, which again, to kind of fit the whole dementia parallel, that is very isolating for the person experiencing it, right? Because then you feel like you’re cut off from, you know, everybody else because of what’s happening in your own mind.
Jacob (13:51.775)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (13:55.342)
No matter how hard you try, this relationship is going to ruin all your other relationships. And they have a neighbor next door who’s super nice, her name is Mrs. Roach, which, you know, yeah, we’re gonna, no, we’ll get into it, but she’s got cerebral palsy. And so she’s like a super nice lady, but she’s infirm. And there’s really just, she can kind of offer moral support, but they’re just not in the same place in life. And so the movie gives you, she’s got a sister.
mike (14:07.045)
Oh, metaphor.
mike (14:15.747)
Mm.
mike (14:21.939)
Mm.
Jacob (14:24.098)
the sister is just kind of like not a nice lady or she’s not very compassionate towards Amelia, you know? And so like the movie actually goes out of its way. Yeah.
mike (14:31.139)
And or she’s just kind of over it. Like she’s been, cause you know, it’s been what eight years, 10 years. So it’s almost like her, she’s reached her expiration point for X for compassion, which again, that sounds harsh, but in one sense it’s like, you know, somebody is going to like, yeah.
Jacob (14:40.106)
Yep, six years.
Jacob (14:44.522)
Yeah, this is this is how it goes with humans. Anyway, like, so the movie actually it shows you it’s like, yeah, this lady is alone, even though she’s not she is. And it continues to drive that home as the movie progresses and other ways to. But the Babadook. All right, let’s get to it. The Babadook. Yes. So she starts
mike (14:53.246)
Mm.
mike (15:00.975)
Finally some companionship. No, I’m just kidding. Finally, yeah. Well, I mean, he is wearing the same hat that her husband did, right? Isn’t that kind of the thing? But anyway.
Jacob (15:11.086)
Uh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s based on it. So she, uh, she, um, starts reading this book. She’s like, Oh, okay. I guess this book is here. All right. And so she starts reading it, but it’s like a weird book, you know, and it’s, it’s kind of got creepy illustrations and, uh, you know, the opening lines are kind of iconic. Uh, it’s if, if it’s in a glance or, or is it, if it’s in a word or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of the Baba duck.
And we’ll talk about that line because that line kind of keeps popping up throughout the movie and things like that. But as it continues to go, it basically ends with like, you know, I can’t remember how the book phrases it, but it’s like, I’m such a fun guy until I’m not. And then you’re never gonna, you’re gonna wish you were dead. You know, it gets really dark really quick. And yeah, it’s like an evil Dr. Seuss book.
mike (15:37.222)
Hmm.
mike (15:55.194)
Mm.
Yeah, yeah. And it rhymes, which makes it, you know, it’s got that little sing-songy nature to it. Yeah.
Jacob (16:06.662)
And so, and the kid freaks out, is the Boba duck gonna get us mom, you know, and then the rest of the movie the kid is like worried about the Boba duck, right. And, and so she removes the Boba duck book from sites. But this book just won’t stay put. Oh, that rhyme too. Anyway, and so the at this point, you’ve had a lot of
mike (16:14.504)
Mm.
Jacob (16:34.638)
beginning of this movie is setting up her isolation, her depression, her PTSD basically over her husband’s, the tension she has with her child and this is when the weird stuff starts. Once this book gets read suddenly
mike (16:48.439)
Yeah. Where it becomes a little bit more external. Like, things are happening, and what’s causing it to happen?
Jacob (16:54.762)
Well, I would argue not quite yet. And that’s actually one of the things I think is really, really clever about this movie is that it for a while, right? I would say like, if like the first act is just like the setup, right. Until you get to the book, the second act basically is allowing you as a viewer. To just ask the questions, like what is going on? Because so the first thing that really is weird.
mike (17:01.455)
Okay.
mike (17:17.592)
Mm.
Jacob (17:22.63)
is there’s a glass in her soup. She goes and she’s eating dinner with her son, right? And suddenly she gets a cut in her mouth and she like starts spooning through her soup and there’s glass shards in it and the child’s like, it’s the Baba Dookmum. This is an Australian movie so like you know, it’s the Baba Dookmum and yeah there you go.
mike (17:25.966)
Yeah.
mike (17:34.948)
Mm-hmm.
mike (17:43.592)
I was taken out of it for a second until I heard the accent. Then I was like, oh, that’s right. Yeah, exactly. The realism is bringing me back in. So but anyway, yeah, I know I forgot about that. That it’s that’s a very creepy like, you know.
Jacob (17:54.559)
Yeah, it is. It’s like and because listen, this kid is obsessed with the Babadook. He starts to make little like contraptions, like little like, there’s like an edge of violence, like a catapult. There’s a there’s a crossbow. He makes a homemade crossbow. In other words, he’s gotten into fights with kids at school. He’s got he’s got violent tendencies, right?
mike (18:05.503)
Like a catapult. The. Yeah.
mike (18:10.871)
Yeah, which.
I was going to say that’s what got him kicked out I think was that he built the crossbow.
Jacob (18:20.69)
And so there is like he is, he has exhibited signs of being potentially dangerous. Right. And when he took, when he talks about the Boba, I’m gonna smash his head, mom, I’m gonna kill him, you know, like he’s it. And these are just things that you don’t like hearing coming out of the mouth of a six year old. And so, and so the kid is really creepy, basically in the beginning of this movie. Right. And so when she’s got glass shards in her soup.
mike (18:31.373)
Mm.
mike (18:40.28)
Mm.
Jacob (18:49.342)
And the kids like, Oh, it’s the Boba duck mom. See, I told you the Boba duck is going to get you. And it’s like, is this kid okay? Yeah. Is this the kid? What’s going on here? You know, the mom doesn’t know where the book came from. Like, you know, where did this book come from? You know, the kid brings it right. Um, the kids obsessed with the Boba duck, you know, and she’s like, he’s just made up. You know, you don’t he claims to see him everywhere. He definitely, he definitely kind of comes across as crazy. The kid does right.
mike (18:53.803)
Mm. So then you think, is the kid doing it? Yeah. That’s the, mm.
Yeah.
mike (19:14.81)
Yeah.
mike (19:18.978)
Mm.
Jacob (19:19.574)
But then as the movie progresses, so does she. Right? And suddenly you start to get little hints that it’s not the kid. Like the mom is kind of crazy. So for example, I love there’s a little hint drops. She’s at a birthday party with her sisters and she’s like being isolated with all these other women that don’t have the same problems that she has. And they’re like, well, tell us your, what’s your, she’s like, well, I used to write children’s books.
mike (19:26.468)
Mm.
mike (19:33.548)
Yeah.
mike (19:45.475)
Mm.
Jacob (19:49.598)
And it’s like, Oh, red flag, you know, like, is and you know, the entire movie has demonstrated that she’s got like insomnia that she’s kind of like, out of it a lot, you know, and she’s slowly unraveling. And it’s like, did she write the book? Is the book did she? Well, yeah, did she like did it like sleepwalk, you know, or is she crazy? Is she just like straight crazy? Has like all the guilt and repression and tragedy just like broker, you know? And so like
mike (19:52.473)
Mm. Yeah.
mike (20:06.551)
Yeah, and then forget that she did. Like she was, yeah.
mike (20:13.705)
Mm.
It’s just.
Jacob (20:18.93)
you know, yeah, did she write the book? And just not know split personality stuff. And, and then as you know, like she
mike (20:24.367)
Mm-hmm.
she lashes out at one of the moms too and it make things awkward. So there you’re getting that kind of like social thing that we’ve all been, we’ve been heaping on her son though. Like the son is the one getting in trouble at school, like having social issues, but now she’s manifesting the same thing, right? In the adult version of it. And so then you have the.
Jacob (20:30.754)
Mm-hmm isolation thing go
Jacob (20:38.364)
Oh yeah.
Jacob (20:41.846)
Mm hmm. Oh, and arguably, she’s the one that drove her co worker away, right? Like the co worker was still like, oh, you’re not sick. Okay. But then she kind of freaks out. And I think like, that’s what really kind of, you know, it’s a it takes two to tango in this relationship, you know, and in so in this whole middle segment of the movie is just a spiral into insanity, and a questioning of
mike (20:53.464)
Mm-hmm.
So.
Jacob (21:11.414)
Because the kid says there’s this other entity called the Babadook. The kid believes the Babadook is afflicting them. The mother keeps denying it. Is you know, is it the kid? Is it the mom? Is there a Babadook? You know, I think the movie does a good job of like allowing you to wonder for a long time. I think the real giveaway that there’s something really strange going on though, is like, eventually the book shows back up.
mike (21:30.02)
Yeah.
Jacob (21:37.35)
And she’s already tried to get rid of it, tore it apart, you know, kind of thing and like frustration. And it’s stitched back together. Like she hears a doorbell, right? Is it in her head? You know, and then she like goes to the door and that books on her doorstep. And it’s like, is this in her head? She she opens it up, and it’s all stitched back together, but it’s got new words in it, you know, and, and in this time, it’s much more violence. Now it shows her killing the family dog, it shows her
mike (21:38.19)
Mm.
mike (21:43.075)
Yeah.
mike (21:47.023)
but differently, but yeah.
mike (21:53.193)
Mm.
mike (21:58.661)
Yeah.
mike (22:02.05)
Hmm
Jacob (22:05.858)
hurting herself and her kid. Yeah. You know, maybe we should have exclaimers, you know, like, hey, this is a dark movie. It’s got really serious subject matter in it, folks. So, it’s a little too late to give that disclaimer, but disclaimer, but I keep calling it exclaimer. Yeah, this is, and I’ll say this much, it’s a very clean horror movie. This is unlike, for example, Cabin in the Woods, there’s a lot of grotesquery in that might turn some people off.
mike (22:06.363)
killing the sun and then herself, yeah.
mike (22:14.579)
It’s a monster in the house. It’s there’s a yeah. Well, if you’ve googled the movie, you know what it’s rated. So, yeah.
Jacob (22:33.41)
This is pure kind of psychological horror. And so there’s not a lot of like cussing or blood or gore or nothing like that. Yeah, it’s not salacious at all. It’s just disturbing.
mike (22:36.801)
Mm.
No, nothing salacious, nothing. Yeah, it’s not, which to refer back to cabin in the woods, those are all there, those are all done ironically, but they’re still there. So you still have to kind of like contend with the way it was here, you know, even though it’s very much, it has a lot of things to say, it very much has a commentary, it doesn’t have to like spell it out for you in the same way, so.
Jacob (22:49.372)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (23:00.334)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, if you can stomach like a Hallmark, you know suspense movie about like a serial killer trying to like kill his 13th victim Then you could probably stomach this movie so
mike (23:11.172)
That’s an interesting connection, I guess.
Jacob (23:14.35)
So, but so she finds this book, it’s way more crazy. But here’s the thing, by this point, she’s already gone to the psychiatrist and gotten like medicine for the kid to dope him up and put him to sleep. So she’s, she’s the kids asleep, there’s no way the kid could have reassembled this book. Right. And so at this point, it’s like, okay, either she’s doing this, or there’s something really
mike (23:28.931)
Mm.
mike (23:38.691)
Hmm
Jacob (23:44.31)
And it’s at this point.
mike (23:44.887)
And this is also when we start to see, you know, something is moving, some sort of shadowy figure, right? Shadow, you figure, is moving.
Jacob (23:51.294)
Yeah, things start to really spiral after this, after this moment, because now, now she’s seen the Babadook everywhere. She she has hardcore insomnia. At this point, she’s watching old black and white movies at night and the Babadook showing up in them in the neighbor’s house, you know, she goes and she begins to think that she’s being stalked.
mike (23:55.448)
Yeah.
mike (24:01.031)
Mm.
mike (24:09.675)
in the movie.
mike (24:15.886)
Mm.
mike (24:20.451)
Yeah.
Jacob (24:21.578)
She doesn’t believe in a supernatural or anything like that.
mike (24:23.715)
Well, because yeah, there’s the phone call too, where she hears the voice on the other end. So… So yeah, so there’s another… Yeah.
Jacob (24:26.474)
Yeah, that’s right. Bob, you know, creepy, creepy stuff. Yeah. And she goes to the police. She’s like, I’m being stalked. Someone’s sending me crazy books and all that stuff. And she sees the Bobbitt’s clothing behind the police officer. And suddenly the police all the police officers seem very nefarious looking like they’re just kind of staring at her because she’s a crazy lady at this point. But she from her perspective, the police officers look really scary, right? And oh, they’re in on it. They’re in on it.
mike (24:41.523)
Oh yeah.
mike (24:45.664)
Hmm
mike (24:53.431)
Like they’re in on it sort of thing. Yeah.
Jacob (24:55.826)
you know, kind of thing. And so she’s losing it hardcore. She CPS shows up at this point. And CPS isn’t nefarious. But there it’s a it’s a stressor. Yeah, it’s a stressor. And suddenly, you know, it is it’s scary that CPS shows up at your door. And this is right when she’s having a basically she’s seen cockroaches everywhere, infesting her house.
mike (25:06.479)
It’s because the kid hasn’t been shown up to school. Yeah. So it’s a legitimate thing.
mike (25:21.992)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Jacob (25:23.074)
And when she goes to tell the CPS people, oh, excuse the mess, the cockroaches, there’s no, there’s no cockroaches. There’s no hole in the wall where cockroaches are supposedly coming out of. And she looks crazy again, right? And you pointed this out when we were talking about this, that like, oh, the neighbor’s name is Mrs. Roach. And it’s like, huh. I never actually, I never made that connection until, which is kind of silly that I didn’t pick up on that. But yeah, and I think for my money, I think that sounds like she is,
mike (25:33.498)
Yep.
mike (25:40.503)
And she keeps coming over. Yeah. She keeps coming over. Yeah.
Jacob (25:53.166)
Mrs. Roach is just another problem in her life, right? Infesting her life, kind of like what you’re saying, you know. Mm-hmm. Ah, a little, a little ah.
mike (25:56.115)
Mm-hmm. Infesting your life. Very good. Yeah. A little on the nose. A little on the nose, but that’s a little on the top hat. But that’s all right. So yeah, it’s been progressively getting worse, getting more and more scary, more and more. And then it actually starts to turn violent. And this is where it’s kind of the, I guess, say the big kind of climactic actor scene.
Jacob (26:05.739)
Mm-hmm, a little on the top hat.
Jacob (26:22.514)
Like the third act is when all the cards are on the table. I would say, well, kind of, kind of, right? I actually think there’s a very interesting movie textually. Yeah, I know, I know. All right, we got to go. We got to go. So anyway, so suddenly she goes, she goes into the basement one day because she’s, you know, and she sees a vision of her husband, but it’s the Babadook in the guise of her husband. And she basically gets possessed by him. The Babadook.
mike (26:25.692)
is.
mike (26:31.507)
No, but we gotta move on, that’s what I’m saying. No, I’m just kidding, this is my nice way of saying, let’s, yeah.
mike (26:48.835)
Mm.
Jacob (26:51.406)
possesses the woman. And so at this point the movie has really gone really far in the direction of no these actually are people being afflicted by an external presence, right?
mike (26:53.637)
Mm-hmm.
mike (27:03.351)
This is a, it’s now, and this is where it got into our hole. Is this a possession flick? Is this a possession movie? Right. But not under, it’s not the typical possession movie because there’s no, you know, actual.
Jacob (27:13.13)
This is not the priest has to come exercise the child in, you know, heads twisted on their bodies type movie. No, this is very non-religious, the context, you know, framed movie. Religion doesn’t come up explicitly in this movie, but I think it’s impossible. Yeah.
mike (27:20.803)
Yep.
mike (27:28.074)
Mm-hmm.
mike (27:31.851)
And yet, what we like about it is the same spiritual realities are there, even though they don’t have the same trappings of what you would typically see in a possession movie. And in some ways, you are saying that’s to its credit, that’s to its benefit. It can almost have a greater evangelical value because it doesn’t have that sort of baggage that some people would associate with it. Yeah.
Jacob (27:45.155)
I think so.
Jacob (27:51.07)
especially in today’s climate, right? I mean, like, so here’s the thing, like, I love all the Catholic horror movies out there. And like the possession horror movies, I think that they are fun and valuable in their own rights. But I will say that they turn demons into like Freddy Krueger, right? Like it’s not it’s it feels like it’s a monster movie. And it doesn’t feel like it’s correlating to most people’s lived experience, right?
mike (28:07.344)
Mm.
mike (28:13.411)
and
And it’s where it falls short too is, it starts to give the impression that’s the only way that a demon can be scary is if it has the, like you said, if they make it like Freddy Krueger. And that’s, again, even from a classical Christian, Catholic theological understanding, that’s not where the demons do the most damage is not because they have the knife or the saw hands or whatever. Like that’s the Hollywood version, so to speak.
Jacob (28:26.23)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (28:43.578)
This is a good opportunity to just go through the four stages. I have, I put them in the outline. That’s right, folks. I did the outline for this one. But, you know, I kind of condensed them a little bit.
mike (28:51.48)
Yeah.
mike (28:54.743)
So you can send your complaints too. No, I just, well, and actually what I like about it too is so if you look at these four and we’ll go over them in just a second, you could almost see the progression in the Babadook movie too. Where, you know, so like the first one is Infestation.
Jacob (29:07.79)
Mm hmm. Even though the Babadook movie will never is never using Catholic authority. It’s just it but it’s the parallels are crazy. I never even looked it up. I have no idea how much yeah what familiarity she has, you know, so go on.
mike (29:14.315)
No. And we have no idea if the writers or the directors were. Yeah. No. Yeah. Never even occurred to me to look it up. So the first one is infestation, which, you know, you simply put is haunted house stuff. And we start to see, you know, its voices. We have the knocking on the door or the, or, you know, footsteps or objects moving, which we’ll kind of see later on as well. So that’s the infestation. You know, that’s that kind of the first step.
Jacob (29:42.189)
Mm-hmm.
mike (29:43.907)
The next one is oppression, which is physical attacks, sleep disturbances. Oh, wow, huh. I wonder if we’ve seen any of that. The nightmares, the illness too, which again, you could see sort of the parallel to obviously mental illness, the depression and anxiety, we definitely see manifested in these characters too. Relationship problems, right? So it’s like that next step or that next stage of oppression is all over the movie, all over the place.
Jacob (29:50.418)
Yeah, oh disturbed sleep, huh? Mm-hmm
Jacob (30:03.214)
for it and definitely that, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jacob (30:13.738)
all over the movie and all over everyone’s lives, right? I mean, like, you know, like, and so we’ll get into it. I just want to point out, like, what we were saying was this movie, in some sense, it’s beneficial that this movie doesn’t come at it from a traditional demon possession angle, because what this movie shows you is that everyone experiences the oppression of demons.
mike (30:13.837)
Um.
mike (30:17.856)
Well, yeah, certainly.
mike (30:39.192)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (30:39.366)
everyone does, you know, now when it starts to get really ramped up, that’s when you start to like, take notice and things like that. But it helps people, I think this helps modern people who are so dismissive of, you know, this idea of demon oppression as something heads spinning. No, yeah, it’s how is your sleep? How is your how are your relationships? How is your mood? You know, what’s your anxiety like, you know?
mike (30:57.508)
Yep.
mike (31:02.879)
Mm.
And if we want to look at it from a lowercase c Catholic perspective, if the whole idea is that God is trying to communicate His grace and His life to as wide a group as possible, then in a sense, you want that lowest threshold, lowest common denominator when it comes to these different stages, because that’s where then most people can recognize the need. They can recognize the need for grace when, like you said, it doesn’t have to be this specific or special example of the monster in the house.
you know, sometimes the house is us and the monster is our own subconscious or our own, you know, anxiety or cutting off of relationships, things like that.
Jacob (31:45.062)
And this is not watering down like, you know, classical Christian teaching on demonic activity. This is not moving the goalpost. No one ever said that Christianity thinks that demon activity is spinning heads. Right? No, Christianity says that demonic activity is the stuff that this movie is talking about, right? It’s just this movie does a really good job of drawing attention to it, you know, so
mike (31:52.163)
Mm-mm.
mike (32:01.79)
Mm.
mike (32:07.454)
Mm.
mike (32:12.215)
And it’s not an either or, it’s a both and, right? I mean, that’s always been the case. So yeah, the third one is obsession, which again, it’s almost like, again, you can see kind of the ramping up, similar to the ramping up that we’ve seen in the movie itself, but afflicted person having a hard time functioning at all. Preoccupied with, now, it could be.
Jacob (32:17.346)
So oppression.
Jacob (32:34.107)
Yep. Amelia really gets to this place, definitely gets to this place. There’s a scene, there’s a super creepy scene where she’s sitting in the bathtub, you know, remember that moment where like, it’s like, oh yeah, she’s lost it, like she’s done, you know, and she brings the kitten in the bathtub. And at this point, you’re worried for the child. At this point, it’s like…
mike (32:37.623)
Well there again, she’s seeing the Babadook, she’s seeing the demon everywhere.
mike (32:45.001)
Oh yeah.
mike (32:48.803)
Mm-hmm.
mike (32:54.763)
Yep. Well, and you’ve already seen the foreshadowing, or what seems to be foreshadowing of
Jacob (32:58.806)
The Babadook book has depicted her hurting him, you know, killing herself, which is a
mike (33:05.067)
And there was the news story that she’s watching on TV, because she’s watching, you know, and you remember, it’s the news story about the mom who kills her kid, and then she’s killed by the police, and she sees herself in the window, yep, of the newscast or whatever. So there’s some, so there’s all this foreshadowing, and then like you said, you’re like, oh boy, here it comes. You know, it’s gonna happen. I thought Mrs. Roach was gonna get it, to be honest. I thought she was gonna be the one to, but.
Jacob (33:09.234)
Oh yeah, she sees there’s a new story about a mother killing her child and her she’s smiling in the window
Yeah, there’s some really creepy elements in this movie.
Jacob (33:26.51)
Mm hmm. And
mike (33:33.699)
But you know, she lives, she lives. Unfortunately, not everybody though, right? Yeah. The dog gets it, the dog gets it. Yeah. I heard it was John Wick’s dog actually. It was John, yeah.
Jacob (33:34.359)
Yeah. It’s worse. It’s worse. It’s not Mrs. Roach. It’s the dog. They kill the dog, which honestly that’s such an efficient short. Oh, that’s well the sequel to this movie is her going and taking vengeance against the Babadooks family. So yeah. Yes. But the, you know,
mike (33:52.868)
Oh nice, perfect, yeah.
Jacob (33:58.99)
Oh, I just thought that John Wick joke made me lose my train of thought. But oh, no, that’s what it was. It’s it’s such good if you want a movie to really freak an audience out, kill the dog. Right. I mean, like, we’ll worry about humans being killed, I guess. But like kill a dog. And suddenly it’s like, oh, this lady’s crazy. You know.
mike (34:02.791)
Of course, yeah.
mike (34:11.053)
Mm-hmm.
Well, and the thing too is, and I did say to you, it does kind of allow for there to be lower consequences in terms of like, she’s not gonna go to jail or at least she’s gonna get away with that, whereas she’s not gonna get away with killing Mrs. Roach or killing the kid. So it does allow for a sort of resolution, which we haven’t quite gotten to yet. Yeah.
Jacob (34:24.845)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (34:33.494)
This is post possession by the way, right? So like she’s, I guess, I guess just finished the fourth category of
mike (34:39.915)
Yeah, so possession is, the person, I mean, even though technically they have, free will has not removed, but it’s been severely compromised. It’s compromised to the point where it’s like, you have lower culpability, right? And yet it’s still technically you. So your defenses are so down that you’re very suggestible to whatever this demon, yeah, so this demon.
Jacob (35:05.491)
Yeah, like hypnotism almost.
mike (35:09.227)
Oh, hypnotism, we’re gonna talk about get out too, right? No, sorry, that’s another kind of pulled availability, yeah.
Jacob (35:13.291)
Well, one thing that a hypnotist, what a hypnotist, you probably don’t want me to talk about get out, but what a hypnotist will tell you is that he can’t make anyone do anything they’re not willing to do. I mean, that’s classic hypnotism. Like I’ve gone to shows or like hypnotists like do things, you know, pull people out of the audience and things like that. And you know, like, there’s always a disclaimer because people are worried like, oh, a hypnosis is gonna make me do something.
mike (35:20.718)
No.
mike (35:26.37)
Mm.
Um.
Jacob (35:40.69)
And like a hypnotist is like, I’m not going to, like, I mean, they’re going to have fun. This is going to be goofy or whatever. But like, you know, a hypnistess cannot hypnotize you into like murdering your own child. You have to be willing to do that.
mike (35:51.299)
Hmm. That had to have already been there in some seed form, which, again, that’s maybe the creepiest part about this is, if that is really the case, then that has to tell us, the viewer, that was already there, in a sense, before any of this, before the.
Jacob (36:06.55)
Well, that’s we’re going to get. Yeah. I, we’re, I think by the end of this conversation, we’re going to, we’re going to talk about these things. Right.
mike (36:12.963)
So some of the examples of this last one of possession, we don’t really see superhuman strength or the speaking in tongues, that sort of thing. But the changes in facial features when it’s like she kind of takes on this other face almost.
Jacob (36:26.36)
Mm-hmm. She has some vocal changes too. Um, yep.
mike (36:29.719)
Yep, so that’s where that really kind of tells you like, oh, this isn’t Amelia anymore. This isn’t her, so to speak.
Jacob (36:37.05)
Yeah, well, and then if you so if you start if you start the top infestation that’s haunted house stuff in this movie We have a mysterious book showing up. We have glass showing up in the soup We have lights flickering like throughout the movie lights flicker strangely and things like that There’s definitely poltergeist like activity that starts to take place in this movie Yeah, absolutely. Um the phone call, right? um, and then uh Uh, dang it. What’s the second one? It was infestation it goes, uh
mike (36:45.374)
Mm.
mike (36:49.088)
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
The phone, the knock on the door, yeah.
Jacob (37:06.942)
Oppression, yeah. Well, that one’s the most obvious because that’s the insomnia. That’s the anxiety and depression, the relationship problems, the financial problems they make a reference to. I lit incense in my room because Baba Dookie, remember? And yeah, now there’s creepy smoke coming in here. But anyway, happy Halloween. But the
mike (37:08.203)
Oppression. Yeah.
mike (37:25.205)
Ooh, giving a vibe, yeah, giving a vibe.
mike (37:35.951)
then Obsession, which we see a lot of stuff on too.
Jacob (37:37.238)
financial issues, financial issues when it comes to the oppression and things like that. The movie references her not having any money. And then, yep, and then obsession, the conspiracy theorizing, everyone’s out to get, the police are out to get me, you know, all this stuff. And then obviously possession, that’s when she just goes crazy. Like the movie shows her get possessed, her eyeballs
mike (37:50.657)
Mm.
Jacob (38:06.762)
implying that it’s not just her still being crazy, that there’s something else at work here. And that’s when the most severe stuff starts to happen. She kills the dog, right? She and then right after that, it’s so nefarious. It’s so diabolical because she’s like, oh, the dog’s sick, honey. The dog’s sick. We have to take him, you know, come on, let’s go. She’s like going to like, she’s drawing the kid to her, you know, and stuff like that.
mike (38:07.217)
Mm.
mike (38:22.786)
Mm-hmm.
mike (38:32.975)
Well, and I think, yeah, and there was this thing of like, yeah.
Jacob (38:35.318)
Cause he’s already, he’s like, oh no, you’re possessed. You know, like he’s, he figures it out like right quick.
mike (38:40.831)
Mm-hmm. And well, she grabs the knife, which at first it’s thought, oh, it’s to protect when, oh, now it’s going to become, it’s going to turn on. Because there again, that’s also foreshadowed in the book that she uses the knife on herself too. So you’re thinking, and I think wasn’t there a scene where you don’t see it happen, but the camera looks down and she’s holding the knife and she didn’t realize she was holding it? So it’s one of those things where it’s like, it’s not.
Jacob (38:42.018)
What were you gonna say?
Jacob (38:51.391)
Yep.
Jacob (38:56.283)
Yep, absolutely. And she’s sitting.
Jacob (39:05.366)
Oh, it’s a great it’s this it’s really creepy moment where like she’s having dreams she’s having crazy dreams and things like that and like so the line between reality and her insomnia and dreaming and things like that gets blurred a lot in this movie and so there’s this moment where she’s like She thinks that she’s like going to help her I forget kind of the context but suddenly she’s like her kid is screaming and she kind of like snaps out of it and she’s standing over him holding the knife in her hand and He’s freaked out because his mom
mike (39:16.535)
Hmm. Yeah.
Jacob (39:34.87)
standing over him holding a knife in her hand, you know, and she’s like, Oh, no, what am I doing? Right. She’s losing her grip. And so, and then so she’s, she, she’s killed the dog in the kitchen. She, she’s like, we gotta get the dog. And he’s like, you know, you’re not okay, mommy. And she’s like, No, come here, honey, kind of thing. And she’s acting all like, foe motherly to him. But her arms are like slow, her hands are slowly like creeping around his neck.
mike (39:37.711)
Mm-hmm.
mike (40:00.526)
Mm.
mike (40:05.327)
Yeah.
Jacob (40:05.406)
And that’s when he stabs her in the leg. That’s when he’s like, you’re not my mom. And, uh, you know, he stabs her, he gets the knife and he stabs her in the leg. Right. And the rest of the climactic scenes here is her chasing her own son through the house, Jack Nicholson style. And, um, but that’s where this is great. This is good script writing. That’s where all those Baba duck, uh, weapon weaponry, he basically home alone is his mom.
mike (40:08.139)
Yeah. Which, yeah.
mike (40:20.787)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jacob (40:32.138)
and has all these weapons in place to use against his mom.
mike (40:36.705)
Yeah. So the crossbow, he uses a dart, like on a dartboard.
Jacob (40:39.366)
Yeah, like a dartboard dart in her arm. He catapults her in the head with a like a cricket ball, you know, or what’s that? What’s that thing you hit the balls through the little croquet? I think it’s a croquet ball. Yeah. And he runs to the basement. He flees to the basement where his dad’s at, right? Isn’t that the idea? And she chases him down there. And when he
mike (40:47.492)
Oh yeah.
mike (40:52.411)
Croquet, is that what you mean? Croquet. OK.
mike (41:03.363)
Mm.
Jacob (41:06.746)
when he gets her in the head with his catapult she falls down the stairs and gets knocked out and wakes up tied up right but she’s like full-on babadook at this point full-on possession and he is a pitiful sad six-year-old kid who just wants his mom back this movie is so good at um hitting all the feels all at once right um it’s such an emotional story
mike (41:13.751)
Yep. Yeah.
mike (41:18.601)
Hmm
mike (41:26.616)
Mm.
mike (41:32.13)
Mm. Yeah.
Jacob (41:35.502)
And he, he’s like, you know, don’t let him control you, mom. Don’t let him control you or whatever. And she breaks free from the ropes and she starts to really choke her kid. At this point, she is getting them and he manages to get his hand on her face. And I’m getting surprisingly emotional at this moment. He puts his hand on her face. I know it’s a little choked up here. Puts his hand on her, on her face. And he’s like, I know he won’t let you love me.
mike (41:46.383)
Mm.
mike (41:55.979)
I was gonna say, I was like, oh.
as a gathered.
Jacob (42:05.8)
but I’ll always love you.
mike (42:08.503)
Oh, and it does, honestly, the kid’s hand on the face, it takes you back. And I think, of course, I think this has to be on purpose of it’s like when a mother gives birth to a new baby. And the first thing they’ll do is they’ll put the baby on the mother’s skin-to-skin contact. And the baby can’t even barely see much further away than the distance between him or herself and the mom. And they put their hand on the mother’s face. And it’s supposed to kind of bring you back to that, which obviously that’s the whole thing is the birth of
Jacob (42:09.904)
It’s…
Jacob (42:34.179)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (42:38.77)
Yeah, well, it turns her into a mother, like it, it’s bringing the mother back. Yeah. It’s restoring the mother relationship, the maternal. Yeah. Because, you know, we’ve had moments in the movie where like, you know, she’s not, she’s not being able to fully embrace her motherhood to this child because of the PTSD, because of the tragedy. And, you know, so I know he won’t let you love me, mom, but I’ll always love you. And
mike (42:38.963)
the sun. That’s where
It’s the healing. It’s the healing. Yeah, it’s the healing moment of what it should have been the day that it happened.
mike (42:58.509)
Mm.
mike (43:05.699)
Man, the Babadook, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll scream. It’s like, that should be the new tagline. Yeah.
Jacob (43:09.53)
It’s a very good movie. This is a very good movie. And that breaks the Babadooks’ spell over the mom. And so like, and SC Davis. I.
mike (43:19.531)
Mm-hmm. Which it’s like, what’s gonna win in the end? Love wins in the end. It’s like unbelievable. How Christian can you get when it’s like, sacrificial charity wins in the end? That’s what kills the demon, so to speak. Or, you know, well not kills necessarily, but frees the person. That’s what frees the person is the sacrificial charity.
Jacob (43:28.364)
Yeah.
Jacob (43:34.218)
Well, it-
Jacob (43:39.318)
this is a good moment to just give kudos to Essie Davis is the name of the actress who plays Amelia. And she is a powerhouse in this movie. Like she wears so many emotions on her face this entire film. And in this moment where like she basically like screams after the child does that to her. And it’s like it’s like the ripping the
Jacob (44:08.722)
And she, you know, she basically, yeah, and then she throws the child off her and she gets on all fours and she just starts puking up all kinds of black bile. Now, if you really want your demon possession symbolism in that you will your traditional symbolism in a demon possession movie, you get it. Here it is. She just she’s. Yeah, and the bile the bile is very inky, you know, so it’s almost like it’s kind of evokes like the ink drawings and like
mike (44:10.299)
And there’s a purgation that happens. There’s a purging.
mike (44:23.831)
I mean, yeah.
Yeah. You’ve got the throwing up and you’ve got the black bile. Yeah, it’s, it’s
Jacob (44:37.902)
the Babadook movie and like the book, you know. And another reason why this isn’t all in her head because she gets it all over her clothes. So like the rest of the movie, she’s got like real Babadook bile all over and things like that. And you know, so she’s cured of the Babadook, so to speak, right. But here’s the thing. You can’t get rid of the Babadook. And so they walk upstairs, you have this false sense of security as a viewer, and the kids like
mike (44:40.675)
Mm.
mike (45:02.201)
Hmm.
Jacob (45:07.614)
You can’t get rid of the Babadook, mommy. And then all of a sudden he gets supernaturally flung up the stairs. Right. Um, and so she chases after him. She has massive final confrontation, very loud, the ceilings cracking and things like that, and she, and the Babadook has these giant wings that are like, kind of like, you know, and she screams at him, you know, this. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, kind of crow-like really, but then she’s like, this is my house and you are trespassing here.
mike (45:27.183)
Very like bat-like or demonic again. So there again, it’s, yeah.
Jacob (45:37.694)
And she kind of like stands up to him and she’s like, if you ever touch my kid, I’m going to kill you. Like she starts to have all these weapons to use against the Babadook. Right. And.
mike (45:45.255)
Mm. Well, it’s the same anger that same anger is now turned on the real monster. It’s not turned on herself anymore. Because it was turned on herself or turned on her family for this whole movie. And now it’s turned on the monster, where it’s supposed to be. Uh-huh.
Jacob (45:51.062)
It’s like a righteous, it’s like a righteous or her kid, right?
Jacob (45:59.05)
Yeah. She sees who her real enemy is. Yeah. And she knows that like, she can, she can fight back against him. And so she, she yells these things at him and she basically just like kind of stands up to him and squares up to him and like, you know, basically casts him out. Right. Like so to speak. And then all of a sudden, instead of being a giant weird crow creature, he’s a scarecrow.
mike (46:18.931)
Oh, is there an exorcism then? Yeah, exercise is the demon. I mean, it’s…
Jacob (46:27.894)
the movie transition, like suddenly he’s empty. Like, you know, a scarecrow is not a real person. A scarecrow is just something that’s supposed to be scary, but it’s not real. And the scarecrow falls over, loses power, but all of a sudden you get like the crazy cam and he flees to the basement because he can’t get rid of the Baba duck. And so, but you can learn to control him. So he flees to his home in the basement.
mike (46:28.483)
Hmm.
mike (46:33.682)
Mm.
mike (46:47.755)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (46:56.563)
Um, and the movie.
mike (46:58.588)
You make friends with the Babadook, right? I mean, not exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jacob (47:01.302)
We’re gonna get there. I’m not gonna go that route. But what’s the epilogue of this movie, CPS is back but now the relationship between the mom and the son is much better and also less embarrassed, right? Like he says kind of off-color things and she’s like, yeah, he does that. And so there’s this just authenticity and honesty in the relationship between her and her son. And you know, CPS is cool with it.
the final moments of this movie are almost dreamlike because suddenly you’re in a backyard that you really haven’t seen the entire movie. It’s a garden. It’s the color palette. This entire movie is like super blue, just blues everywhere. It’s like a Picasso blue period. And it adds to the depression. It takes place at night. It gets really dark. It’s very colored blue.
mike (47:35.259)
Hmm.
mike (47:38.667)
It’s sunny out. Yeah, it’s actually, it’s not overcast anymore.
mike (47:44.684)
Mm.
mike (47:48.483)
Yeah.
Jacob (47:55.37)
But in this garden scene, it’s all flowers. It’s a garden. It’s rosy. She’s in her pink work uniform he’s a magician that’s his hobby throughout the movie and like he does a magic trick where he pulls a dove out where there shouldn’t be and it’s like Is that six-year-old is that six-year-old like able to? Do that and that that’s why it’s very dreamlike It’s a very dream. And that’s why this movie doesn’t actually ends conclusively
mike (48:02.533)
Hmm.
mike (48:10.791)
Oh yeah. And she doesn’t even like question it. Yeah.
mike (48:18.03)
Yeah.
Jacob (48:24.546)
in my opinion. In the sense that I do think it’s got a happy ending, but it becomes a fairy tale ending.
mike (48:25.551)
Well, and I think that’s.
mike (48:30.667)
A lot of horror movies will even have that sort of like final twist in the resolution where it’s like, oh, yeah, where it’s like, oh, is the, you know, who’s the real monster? Who’s the monster coming back? And so you get a yeah.
Jacob (48:34.719)
Little ambiguity.
Jacob (48:38.846)
Well, here’s the thing. This movie, though, the ambiguity is not the monster win, because we see that. And so she goes, she’s gathering worms in the backyard. She brings it into the house. The babbado comes out of the basement screaming, yelling as loud as ever. And she’s just like, calm down, and gives him his bowl of worms. And then it supernaturally flies across the, yeah, flies into the dark corner.
mike (48:51.915)
Mm-hmm.
Little ball.
mike (49:03.211)
And then you see the bowl just fly into the darkness.
Jacob (49:07.414)
goes back out to her son and the son’s like, how’s the Baba duck? And she’s like, he’s okay. You know, like he’s a little crazy, but nothing I haven’t seen before. Right. And that’s how this movie ends. Well, and that’s what by the end of this movie, by the end of this movie, I think that the film itself doesn’t care if this is all metaphor for mental illness. If it is demonic possession, if it like the answer.
mike (49:14.843)
Thanks for watching!
It’s like their code for when she’s feeling a certain way is, you know, it’s like the code of how’s the Baba duck.
mike (49:32.697)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (49:36.93)
the specifics of that. That’s why it’s almost mythic as a story is like the journalistic specifics just like do not matter. The only thing that matters by the end of it is that everything’s okay.
mike (49:40.969)
Mm.
mike (49:45.035)
No, it’s the hyperreal. What’s the deeper reality that you’re learning from it or that you’re taking from it? Which, I mean, that’s every myth, right? And whether it’s grounded in some sense of reality or semblance of reality, you know, this takes place in the quote-unquote real world of Australia in the modern day, right? You’re never supposed to get the feeling that this is obviously not the 1800s or…
Jacob (49:53.891)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (50:06.102)
Yeah, this movie, especially, and that’s the thing. I mean, if you take the movie holistically, this movie starts out extremely realistic, reality-based, gritty mental illness. By the end of the movie, you’re in a weird garden where the kid’s doing magic and there’s a babadook in the basement. It’s super fairy. It’s super fairy by the end of the movie. And that transgress, that trans, that, that journey has been so gradual.
mike (50:17.368)
Mm.
mike (50:24.472)
It’s fairy. It’s the fairy world is where you end up.
Jacob (50:34.422)
that it’s like you’re in a fairy tale before you even realize what’s happening. And which is which is appropriate for a movie about a children’s book. Right. I mean, like, it’s all thematic to just the overall atmosphere of this film. But the what you do know, no matter what, whether the Bob Dock’s real or not, whether what you saw leading up to this is real. What you know is, is that she’s come to terms with her grief.
mike (50:43.166)
Mm.
mike (50:50.403)
Mm.
Jacob (51:04.658)
And that doesn’t make the grief go away. It doesn’t make it better. You know, like you don’t, you don’t have to befriend the tragedy in your life, but you can live with it and, and you can, you can be at peace. You know, the kid, he, he brings a dove, right? His magic act is like a dove famous, like symbol of peace, symbol of the Holy Spirit, right? Um, peace that passes all understanding, right?
mike (51:08.033)
No.
mike (51:14.968)
Mm.
Mm.
mike (51:22.061)
And.
mike (51:25.688)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
mike (51:33.411)
Well, and I think what you’re touching on, so it reminds me of, I mean, first of all, I think it’s obviously, importantly metaphorical that it’s magic. Because like you said, you’ve already gone over some of the more mythical or fairy tale like qualities here. But like you were saying is that the whole thing about grief is that it’s not something that you can just get rid of. It’s more, do you have the proper tools to manage it? And that’s kind of what magic was always trying to be, is that you are harnessing…
this chaotic reality into man and using it in a way that benefits you. You’re harnessing, whether it’s the energy of the universe or whatever language you want to use, but the idea is that you’re harnessing it towards some end. You’re the agent. You’re the one who gets to determine where it’s going to go. And like I said, on a natural level, you can almost see a metaphor in fire itself, where it’s like…
Jacob (52:08.942)
Mm-hmm.
mike (52:28.495)
Fire is this very, very powerful thing that can be very destructive and kill everyone and destroy everything. Or it can be something that helps cultivate life and community and hearth. And so that’s kind of, you know, they don’t use the fire metaphor as much. That was just one that I was kind of thinking of. But I think magic is a perfect kind of analogy, right? Especially, I mean, you’re the one who always talks about magic all the time, but I just, I figured, you know, it was low hanging fruit. The kid is a magician in the movie. So.
Jacob (52:43.285)
Yeah.
You’re not making an outline for a new episode, are you, Mike?
Jacob (52:56.432)
Yeah, no absolutely. No, 100%. So yeah, that’s what I was…
mike (53:01.047)
I guess I should say there is going to be a fire episode. So that’s probably what you’re thinking of. Yeah, there is going to be a fire episode for sure. There’s just so much symbolism, I mean, to fire. So it’s, especially in Christian symbolism and mythical symbolism. So we got to go there eventually. Once we get done with all these horror movies, I’m like scarred for, yeah.
Jacob (53:14.21)
So yeah, I love October. You know, the big takeaway for Christians in this movie is that in a lot of ways, you know, oh, it’s a possession movie. Yeah, it’s really a repentance movie because I think that people outside of the Christian context think that repent, or especially even Protestants, right? Even people outside of a classical Christian context where we have all these prayers, it’s like, I’m a sinner, I’m a sinner, I’m a sinner, I’m a sinner.
mike (53:41.549)
Mm.
Jacob (53:44.17)
right? And, you know, I remember feeling that way. It’s like, Oh, you’re liberated from sin, you know, you don’t have to worry about sin anymore. You know, why you keep calling yourself a sinner, things like that, right? I think it’s, it’s not it’s not sadomasochism, right? It’s not an obsession with sin. That’s the caricature, right? Especially the Catholic Church, right? Like, that’s the caricature. And it’s not what it is, is it’s, it’s like a Jungian idea of self.
mike (53:45.026)
Mm.
mike (53:53.377)
Mm.
mike (54:00.069)
Mm-hmm.
mike (54:06.372)
Yeah.
mike (54:12.683)
We all feel really guilty about that, by the way. We feel really guilty about that, that we’ve made that impression, but moving on. Yeah, yeah. Yep, yeah. What’s new, right?
Jacob (54:12.81)
like knowing your shadow self. The caricature Yeah, the character of guilt makes you feel guilty. Sure does. But anyway, like young has a shadow self thing, where it’s like, you have to understand that there’s a darkness in you. You have to know what’s there and you can’t pretend it’s not. You can’t repress it like some kind of like weird Victorian prude.
mike (54:34.186)
Mm.
Jacob (54:40.054)
You can’t pretend that it doesn’t matter or that it’s irrelevant or whatever. Like you have to understand that you can’t get rid of the Babadook. One day we believe we will though, right? Like one day the Babadook is going to get cast into a big old lake of fire. But.
mike (54:46.507)
Mm.
mike (54:51.292)
Mm hmm.
mike (54:57.659)
I was going to say, that’s when we talk about the significance in the life of Jesus of the Transfiguration. You know, nobody in a sense was healed in a conventional sense in the Transfiguration, right? And in a sense, you couldn’t even say, oh, well, Peter, James, and John, they were the only ones, they already had faith, they were already apostles. And yet, the Transfiguration still had objective value, right, or evangelical value to kind of bring this full circle. And that’s where, like you said, the whole idea of the Christian life is
Jacob (55:08.194)
Yeah.
mike (55:25.331)
a transfiguration even of, like you were saying, the shadow self. Right? There’s all, there’s this, I mean.
Jacob (55:29.37)
Mm hmm. Well, well, and here’s what I just want to say, though, is like even the greatest saints, even the greatest saints, they don’t feel like they’ve gotten rid of the Babadook. Right. In the minute, the minute you feel like you’ve gotten rid of the Babadook, it just means that you don’t know what you’re talking about. In other words, like up until St. Macarius puts his foot through that door in the desert and says, not yet. Right. Because he knows better. He knows that Satan is a lion seeking whom he can devour. And
mike (55:44.51)
Mm.
Jacob (55:58.402)
Christ retrieves us from like the jaws of that. But not you know, we’ll struggle with that our entire lives. Our sin is going to crouch at our door up until we die.
mike (56:08.674)
Mm.
mike (56:12.895)
or the Babadook’s gonna eat worms in our basement up until, until the Eschaton, yeah, so.
Jacob (56:15.678)
up until we die. That’s right. Exactly. And so if there’s any reconciliation with the Babadook as such in the basement there, it’s not like, it’s not like, oh, I like the Babadook. It’s just that like, a Christ has given us an opportunity. Yeah, the Babadook is not a good guy. Grief is not something that we like reconcile to. It’s something that we live with. Sin is not something we reconcile to. It’s something that we that we live through, you know.
mike (56:28.563)
Mm. It doesn’t become a good guy. Yeah.
Jacob (56:47.323)
And Christ takes care of us, right? We just keep walking the straight and narrow as best we can. And Christ offers the forgiveness when we fail, right? But, and then, you know, we have an assurance that it won’t always be like that in the grand scheme of things, you know? But so this movie teaches us that like, you can understand the darkness within you.
but you can live with it and you can still serve Christ. And that’s what repentance is all about, you know? And that’s ultimately what exorcism is all about, you know, and all that stuff.
mike (57:12.356)
Mm.
mike (57:22.863)
Well, that I think is, I think it’s a good kind of note to end on too is, because we’ve spent some time talking about exorcism. We’ve seen this sort of like modern, almost like materialistic exorcism episode, even though, yes, I’m not trying to argue that it’s purely materialistic. We’ve kind of gone through this and you’ve shown or the movie shows clearly that there’s a lot of ambiguity of is there a sort of pseudo spiritual side to how the movie even presents it.
You’ll talk to any priest, any actual qualified exorcist, and they’ll say the point of exorcism is it’s ultimately evangelization. It’s repentance and drawing closer to Christ, which sounds boring on the surface unless you truly understand what repentance and drawing closer to Christ really means. And I remember hearing this as a kid, in my hearing from a priest, it’s much more power.
Jacob (58:06.242)
Mm-hmm.
mike (58:15.243)
what’s way more powerful than an exorcist is a good confession. And I thought, but that sounds so boring, right? A good confession, that’s like, that’s not exciting like a movie, you know? There’s no movies made about a good confession. Yeah. And it’s like, so it’s the fascination with this, you know, with the, I guess the macabre or whatever. Yeah. Or yeah, or the excitement or, I mean, there’s a reason why, you know, horror movies are popular and exciting. So,
Jacob (58:21.35)
Yeah, oh come on. Mm-hmm. I wanna puke green stuff, come on.
Jacob (58:37.205)
the thrill of the vile.
Jacob (58:42.67)
Hmm
mike (58:45.143)
And it’s not because everybody sees the spiritual side to it, right? We know that’s the case. But that’s where God’s power lies, right? It’s in weakness that God’s power is made perfect. Or it was in the humiliation of the cross, not, you know, Jesus putting his foot down on top of his enemies where God’s power was really working. And, or you could say Jesus putting his foot down on his enemies was on the cross. And so it’s the same thing. You know, there’s way more power in a contrite confession.
Jacob (59:09.483)
Mm-hmm.
mike (59:14.699)
in terms of like an honest confession, your sorrow for, sorry for your sins, you’re turning back to God, than any exciting quote unquote, exciting, you know, exorcism that you might see or experience.
Jacob (59:19.671)
No.
Jacob (59:24.742)
Well, and confession being a powerful tool in our vigilant, constant state of repentance, right? And so really, we talked about this, the whole concept came from a monster in the house idea, you want to do a monster in the house episode. Well, you know, in the Christian tradition, our heart is our house, right? And you know, like, Christ talks about how like, if you clean out your house, but you’re not vigilance, then seven more demons are going to come in.
mike (59:31.693)
Mm.
mike (59:37.813)
Mm.
mike (59:44.999)
Mm.
mike (59:52.203)
Mm. The demons return, yeah.
Jacob (59:54.046)
and occupy that house, right? So the monster in the house is our heart. The Babadook in our house is the thing that Christ expels from us through baptism, through confession. And then our repentance is going to be how we live with the constant attacks of the enemy and things like that. The shield of faith and the fiery darts of the enemy, you know, that has to do with knowing yourself, like the, you know, the famous slogan from the
You know, so yeah, perfect.
mike (01:00:23.647)
Mm. Plato, right? No, Socrates. Plato said that. Oh man, if anybody gets this, watches this show long enough to get that long running Plato said it joke, then kudos. But you know, you brought up this line earlier. Oh wow, that’s quite the, oh boy. Okay, I was gonna say, just cause you don’t get a t-shirt doesn’t mean you have to like throw, you know, give everybody else a t-shirt. You start, you mentioned this line.
Jacob (01:00:35.982)
I’m pretty sure our corporate overlords will send you a free t-shirt folks. Right corporate overlords? Free t-shirts for everybody! Tell them Jacob sent ya!
Jacob (01:00:50.436)
I’m just going to start handing out t-shirts till I get one.
mike (01:00:53.219)
You mentioned this line, which is right from the book. If it’s in a word or in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook, but it’s only the word made flesh that gets rid of the Babadook. And close.
Jacob (01:01:05.654)
Ah, nice.
mike (01:01:09.803)
Alright. No, that was a fun one.
Jacob (01:01:11.951)
Did you end the episode?