The Blair Witch Project (1999) Review

Known as the pioneer of the "found footage" horror genre (even though Cannibal Holocaust did it almost 15 years before this movie), The Blair Witch Project is hailed as a masterpiece of horror among horror buffs and movie fans in general. But does it hold up today, over 15 years later? Probably. Let's take a look at.......The Blair Witch Project.

SPOILERS ALL AROUND! THERE'S PLENTY FOR EVERYONE! HELP YOURSELVES!

I should let you guys know something. Even though I consider myself a horror fan, I didn't see this film until about a month ago. It was always on my "horror bucket list", but I just could never find the time or patience to sit through it until recently. I'd heard wonderful things about it, how it "makes Paranormal Activity look like a joke" (even though Paranormal Activity is already a joke, amirite?), how it's "one of the best movies I've ever seen", and how it "scared the bejeezus out of" my mother and tons of other people. I finally sat down and watched it, and I gotta say.....it's okay, I guess. 

You all know the plot: 3 college kids go into the woods that are supposedly haunted by the spirit of a witch, armed only with a camera, a map, and almost as much sexual tension as Mulder and Scully. They're making a documentary on the area and the myths surrounding the haunted woods. The locals urge them not to go into the woods at night, but you know those darn young'uns, they just don't listen. They go into the woods, spend the majority of the daytime bickering amongst each other, and at night, some spooky stuff happens. That's about it. 

I knew I should've brought more weed, dude....

A major selling point of this film was that this "found footage" thing hadn't been done before (at least in a big theatrical release like this), and as such, the advertising for this film was based on a pure lie told by the production company. The audience was told that the events of the movie actually happened and the three main characters had actually gone missing in the woods. There were all kinds of missing person posters slapped around towns and fake reports put out in the news and junk like that. At least, that's what I've heard. I was a measly 5 years old when this movie came out, so I was obviously more interested in Power Rangers and didn't have time to care about missing people. I think that's why I find this movie a little bit lackluster compared to other people; I wasn't there to witness this film's impact: the masses of people who fell for this publicity stunt and actually thought that these characters were missing. I mean, they went all out: they didn't name the characters and instead used the actors' real names, plus there were no actors listed in the credits. However, I bet all those people who thought they actually died were feeling a little dumb when they saw a little movie from 2007 called The Morgue and said to themselves "Hey, isn't that the girl from Blair Witch? I thought she died! What's she doing here?!" Anyway, this movie proves that advertising is one of the most important aspects that determine how well a movie does in the box office. 

Missing: Three hippie art school students. If found, please do not return. 

So aside from the great publicity that was generated for this movie, what else is there that made it stand out to the average horror viewer in 1999? Well, for one, it's actually really really creepy. Whenever anyone asks me how to properly make a creepy atmosphere in a horror movie, I always point them to the night scenes from Blair Witch. At first, there's not much happening at night: a few birds chirping, maybe a twig snapping, usual nature stuff. Then, they piss off the witch and crap hits the fan. They start waking up to find "presents" in front of their tents: a little doll made out of straw, some rocks in a formation, and a freaking bloody tooth wrapped in cloth. On top of that, the night noises start becoming increasingly more violent. You start to hear low growls, much bigger sticks snapping, large footsteps, and one night, the characters are even confronted by the witch (supposedly, the witch is never actually shown on screen) and chased through the woods. Now, you expect the witch to look like a generic female ghost-y type thing, right? WRONG. 

DEMON MONSTER FROM HELL! This is the "official" Blair Witch action figure, btw.

All this creepiness culminates in one of the friends going missing, and the other two kids go looking for him and eventually find him in the Blair Witch's house, which has a deep mythos surrounding it, which I'm not gonna go into here because it's a really long explanation. Anyway, they find him standing by himself in the corner of a room, not saying anything, which is also part of the mythos, but if you wanna hear about that, go look it up, and the girl says "Josh?" and we cut to black. That's all, folks!

So, what did I think of The Blair Witch Project, one of the most well-respected horror movies of all time? Honestly, I thought it was just above average. It's nothing special, but it's certainly the best found footage movie I've ever seen. Most of it is pretty good: the aforementioned atmosphere, the story is good, and it's very well-paced. The main problem I have with this movie is the same problem I have with all the Paranormal Activity movies (which I'll get to reviewing eventually, trust me). This is the part where you say "But Synester, how on earth can you compare Blair Witch to something like Paranormal Activity?!". And to you, I say: the daytime. The daytime scenes are what makes me not like this movie as much as others. Everything about the daytime scenes is just extremely boring to watch, just like in Paranormal Activity. Literally nothing happens except the characters arguing about which way to go through the woods and maybe a little bit of the mythos is explained. Other than that, NOTHING happens during the day, which takes up about 40% of the entire film! Boring filler like that just kills the mood of your movie and makes the audience hope for something exciting to happen, which good thing it did happen in this film or else I would've been super pissed. Overall though, this movie is pretty good and I completely understand why it has the giant following and reputation that it has. I give The Blair Witch Project 7 shaky handicams out of 10. I'd say definitely watch it once, just to experience the phenomenon for yourself. 

*sniffle* This is stupid. Jimmy started it and I'm the one in time out. *sniffle*

Carrie (2013) Review

I dedicate this review to my fellow reviewer (not horror) friend, Jaimie, who is the one person I know who got pissed off at this movie even more than I did, and that's saying a lot cuz boy oh boy did this one suck absolute donkey testicles. This one's gonna be a long one, folks. Lots of crap for me to vent about. Grab some popcorn and enjoy the ride. This is........Carrie......the new one....

SPOILERS AHEAD! UNLESS YOU'RE JAIMIE, IN WHICH CASE YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS TRASH PILE OF A MOVIE

Oh man, where do I even begin? There's just so much wrong with this movie. So many things to discuss, so many inconsistencies and major changes to gripe about. So many comparisons to the original, superior in every single way 1976 Carrie to make. Let's just start from the beginning I guess.

For starters, the main actresses have obviously been changed since Sissy Spacek is too old to play Carrie and Piper Laurie is too old to play Carrie's mother. Now, book Carrie is ugly, acne-ridden, and very overweight, so the logical thing would be to cast someone who can fit those characteristics to an extent (makeup and CG helps a little with that) and still do a good job acting. One actress who comes to my mind as perfect for the role is Gabourey Sidibe, the girl who played Precious. If the casting manager had chosen her, you'd have knocked out the "it's not book accurate" rant I'm about to slam your way, as well as winning over the Tumblr nerds by casting a black female in the role that was previously held by a white girl. They love that kind of stuff; shows you don't care about what color the protagonist is, as long as they get the job done well. 

A-HEM

Anyway, instead of doing something cool like that, they cast Chloe Grace-Moretz, who is not only not overweight, but is also one of the most beautiful actresses I've ever seen. WHERE IS THE LOGIC?! The part of Carrie's mother is played by Julianne Moore, who just so happens to be my all-time favorite actress. This is a much more fitting casting choice, although I can't help but think that Sigourney Weaver could've done it better. However, both Julianne and Chloe are incredibly talented actresses and they manage to take a little bit of the pain away with their performances. But that's the ONLY thing that's redeeming about this film. Everything, and yes, I mean EVERYTHING else is 100%, farm fresh, unfiltered cow butt. Let's jump into the plot.

There's some stupid prologue thing that shows Julianne Moore giving birth to Carrie and she portrays the character very well, cursing God for placing this burden upon her. This doesn't last long and it accomplishes nothing. MOVING ON!

We start off with the real intro scene in the locker room, just like the original movie, but hold onto your horses folks because not even 10 minutes into this thing yet and we already screwed up big time. Remember in the original film when Carrie gets her first period and freaks out and then all the other girls throw tampons at her and that's about all that happens? Yeah, that happens in this one too, but to further insult the audience members who haven't seen the original, Carrie reveals her psychic powers in the freaking intro scene and starts moving the tampons on the floor away from her and then she screams and a light above her breaks. Good stuff. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Since this movie was made in 2013, we have to involve technology because kids these days are always on those darn cellular telephones. One of the girls takes out her phone and starts filming Carrie with the tampons being thrown at her. 

Gotta love forced cyberbullying subplots

Here's where the movie makes it's first mistake: revealing Carrie's powers almost immediately. In the original film, Carrie barely ever used her powers at all until the prom climax and even when she did, it was very very subtle, leaving the audience wondering what the full extent of what she can do it. In this remake, you see her blow up a lamp in the first 10 minutes, so if you're new to the whole "Carrie" thing, you're naturally gonna assume that if she can blow up a lamp, she can blow up someone's head. They take all of the mystery and intrigue of watching Carrie's powers slowly but steadily grow and just chuck it out the window. 

So, continuing on, Carrie goes home and her mom yells at her like you expect her to, but here's a surprise: Carrie yells back. That's right, that shy, sheltered, scared of everything involving her mother girl you knew in the original film is dead and an angry Chloe Grace-Moretz has overtaken her body, complete with lousy character writing. Carrie is supposed to reluctantly stand there mumbling "Yes mama" over and over again until her mother eventually slaps her and sends her to her room. That's just how it's supposed to go. Carrie is not supposed to freak out and scream at her mother, threatening to kill her with her psychic powers. They took a character and just completely flip flopped how they act in one of the most crucial scenes in the movie! Whyyyyyyy? Also, Carrie's mom slits her wrists when she gets sad because screw movie continuity, we need that gross out factor.

Enter the other characters of the movie. You have Sue Snell, played by No Career After This Movie Girl, Billy Nolan, played by Not John Travolta, Chris Hargensen, played by Pretty Blonde Girl, Miss Collins the gym teacher, played by Who Even Cares, and Tommy Ross, played by Augustus Waters from The Fault In Our Stars. Something tells me that they tried to get Chris Hemsworth to play Billy Nolan because he definitely fits the studly jock stereotype, but I think Chris Hemsworth knew better than to take a movie as dumb as this. Plus, he was already probably doing Cabin In The Woods, which is Citizen freaking Kane compared to this movie.

If you think these characters are gonna be interesting or well-developed, guess again nerd, they're exactly the kind of washed-up, only-there-to-advance-the-plot nothings that modern horror movies like this just love.

So nothing else happens before the prom finale except for Carrie and Augustus Waters getting kinda close and Carrie using her psychic powers every 5 seconds because kids these days are too stupid to understand subtlety and they need the fact that Carrie is psychic to be shoved in their face or they'll get bored with the movie. At this point in the movie, Carrie has advanced her powers from blowing up a lamp and a water cooler to levitating her bed with her on it and spinning books around her like a freaking Kadabra. Blah blah blah, is it time for the pig blood yet?

Actually yes, let's move onto the prom finale, the only thing people who saw the first movie watched the remake for. I watched this remake hoping that all the crap that led up to the prom finale would be forgotten with a massively upgraded prom killing spree, showing how far special effects have come since 1976. What I got was a massively ridiculous gorefest that doesn't hit nearly as hard as it did in the original because you freaking revealed Carrie's full power at the start of the movie and didn't stop showing her using it until this point you freaking idiots. Oh yeah, remember that cyberbullying subplot from the start of the movie? Well, that comes full circle here in the worst possible way. They do the unthinkable. They add insult to injury. They freaking show the cell phone video of Carrie getting bullied in the locker room while she's on stage, right before the pig blood gets dumped on her. Totally, 100%, unequivocally, by all means of the word, UNNECESSARY. 

The killing spree is kind of impressive, but then again, no it's really not. One thing I really hated about is is the music choice. Instead of silence accompanied by a few shrill violin shrieks, they put in a crappy orchestral piece that just kinda sits there while the scene happens around it. Honestly, you kind of forget there's music at all about 30 seconds in. It's really dumb and I don't like it. A few people burn to death, a few people get electrocuted, two twin girls who didn't do anything for the whole movie but apparently they were villains since they hung around Chris got trampled to death and I felt sad for them because they could've done so much more and their death could've actually meant something, Carrie force chokes the gym teacher, like literally picks her up with her psychic powers by the neck and reaches her hand out and chokes her to death like Darth freaking Vader, and a bunch of other stuff happens too, but I don't remember all of it because it really really sucked. But that all pales in comparison to when Chris and Billy chase Carrie in their car outside of the school. Remember in the original movie when they tried to run her over, but Carrie flipped the car like a boss and it was really cool and not at all silly? None of that here. Guess what? Carrie sees the car coming for her and the STOMPS THE GROUND IN FRONT OF HER AND CAUSES AN EARTHQUAKE.

Hmmm, I wonder where they could've stolen-err "gotten inspired by" that idea from?

However, an earthquake is no big deal for cool driver guy Billy, as he just swerves around the cracks. When they've passed the freaking psychic earthquake (God, I can't believe I just said that), Billy and Chris continue to try to run over Carrie, only this time, Carrie just put her arm out in front of her and makes like an invisible wall or something and the front of the car gets crushed and since Billy wasn't wearing a seatbelt, he goes headfirst into the dashboard, most likely killing him. Remember kids, not wearing your seatbelt might make you look like a cool kid, but if a revenge-driven psychic girl comes and causes an earthquake in front of your car by stomping the ground, you're screwed. After Billy (probably) dies, Chris remains in the car, battered, but not dead yet. Carrie takes full advantage of this situation by using her psychic powers to pick up the car. Then, seeing that Chris is flooring the gas pedal, Carrie makes the wise decision to throw the car at a gas station that's like 20 feet away from her. As expected, an explosion that should have been a whole lot bigger and killed Carrie as well only kills Chris and Carrie seriously pulls a Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions walk as the rest of the station blows up. 

Jazz Hands! Ha-cha-cha-chaaaa!

The prom climax is over and half of the people in the theater have left. What's left? Oh yeah, the mother murder! Are they gonna stay true to the book and have Carrie use her powers to stop her mother's heart or are they gonna copy the movie exactly and just leave it with a simple knife to the heart? Kind of in the middle of those two. Carrie takes a bunch of scissors and knives and impales her mother to the wall with them, but it's cool and different and ironic this time since she put some knives in her hands and feet so her mother looks like Jesus crucified on the cross. It's kinda dumb, I know, but I appreciate the effort they put in to making it a cool ironic death. I bet a few people clapped in the theater. 

After that ordeal, freaking Sue Snell comes by and sees Carrie and her dead mother. Sue tries talking to her, but Carrie just force chokes her. Carrie lets Sue go for some reason and she runs away just in time to see the house CGI itself apart. Then the big twist that isn't a big twist if you read the book comes and Sue Snell is preggers. Yyyyaaaayyyy???? Nobody cares??? Just get to the credits so I can get out of this theater and demand a refund?????

So yeah, that's the 2013 Carrie remake. It sucked. It really sucked. It just didn't need to be made. Like, at all. They could've just left the original movie alone and had The Rage: Carrie 2 be the only blemish on an otherwise great book adaptation. Now there's two ginormous zits on the beautiful face of Steven King's Carrie. Honestly, this movie is an insult to the original. Everything the 76 version did right, this movie did wrong, and everything the 76 version did wrong, this movie did worse. I'm still super pissed off that they reveal Carrie's powers in full within 10 minutes of the start. That's just like an insult to the audience, like you think they're too stupid to appreciate the subtle build up of power that the original did so well. The only thing redeeming about this film is the acting by Chloe Grace-Moretz and Julianne Moore, which is saying a lot because they really make something out of nothing with this godawful script. If you've seen the original Carrie, you probably had reasonable doubts about this remake and if you still haven't seen this movie, I advise you to keep having not seen it. Forever. This movie didn't deserve to see the light of day and it should have been scrapped with Texas Chainsaw 2013. STOP MAKING CRAPPY CONTINUATIONS/REMAKES OF GOOD HORROR MOVIES, PEOPLE! I give Carrie 2013 ONE psychic earthquake out of 10. Like I said, the only decent thing here is two actresses trying to make the best out of a garbage script. Never see this movie. Just don't do it. 

You know you messed up when Dave Grohl can pay homage to the movie you're remaking better than you can.

Come Back To Me (2014) Review

This movie really pisses me off. Like, a lot. It's just so bad. So unfathomably bad. Everything about it is just awful. Nothing about it works, and I'm really mad at myself for watching it. This is....Come Back To Me. 

Let's start off simple. 

Plot: Sarah is experiencing waking nightmares after a creepy new neighbor named Dale moves in, so to find out what's going on, she set up a camera in her room. (Minus points for unoriginal found footage crap that every other movie past Blair Witch has done before)

I'm just gonna jump right into it, this movie has a twist ending and it's not good and it makes no sense and it's just really REALLY dumb. Wanna hear it? Trust me, you don't, but I'm not gonna tell you to go watch this piece of crap to find out yourself so I'm gonna tell you to save you the time. 

Twist ending: Dale has the ability to bring people back from the dead. This ability was never alluded to before the last 15 minutes of the film, so there is literally no way of anybody knowing it was coming. Anyway, those waking nightmares Sarah was having? They actually happened. See, Dale has a crush on Sarah because she looks exactly like his mother, who he killed when he was little. So, because he has a crush on her and she doesn't like him back, Dale decides to sneak into Sarah's house at night, kill her in her sleep, then rape her before bringing her back to life. I know, it's dumb, right? 

BONUS TWIST ENDING: Sarah's husband Josh is almost never seen in the movie, but it's told in the middle of the movie that Sarah is preggers. Fast forward to nine months later and near the end of the movie, Sarah gives birth to a beautiful baby boy.....who looks nothing like either her or Josh. Turns out Josh is sterile and that baby belongs to creepy dude Dale, who conceived it by, you guessed it, the first time he killed Sarah and raped her. Gross. 

Anywho, at the end of the movie, Sarah shoots Dale and kills him and I want you to try and guess what happens next. Go ahead, I'll wait....................................................did you guess it?

When Dale dies, all of the people he killed and resurrected die too.

You'd think that's too cliche for a movie that I assume prides itself on fooling you with twists. But no, that's the one thing that's predictable about this film. It's just sad. 

Overall, Come Back To Me is a horrible, horrible movie. You can tell I hated it a lot because of how little content is in this review. I tried to write as much as I could about this movie, I really did, but I just couldn't think of anything else to say about it. No jokes, no clever critique, nothing. Just like this film, I've got nothing. One other thing though, the characters in this film are perhaps some of the worst-acted and worst-written characters I've ever seen in a movie. Creepy Dale is supposed to be a weirdo Norman Bates-y mother obsessed freak, but the actor who portrays him just makes it come off as annoying and retarded. Nothing about this movie is okay, not even a little bit. I've never done this before because I can usually find at least a glimmer of hope in any bad movie, but not this time. There is literally nothing redeemable about this piece of garbage. 

Come Back To Me gets a ZERO out of 10. 

You heard me. ZERO. This is one of the worst excuses for a horror movie I've ever seen and I advise that you never ever watch it. 

Mega Shark VS Mecha Shark (2014) Review

SPOILER ALERT: A MEGA SHARK AND A MECHA SHARK JUST KINDA SWIM AROUND IN THIS MOVIE AND THAT'S ABOUT ALL THAT HAPPENS. NO, REALLY.

So you guys know how much I love giant monster films. Especially giant monster films that feature one giant monster fighting another giant monster. They're usually harmless, "so bad it's good" movies that are perfect for getting a bunch of friends together for a good laugh. However, Mega Shark Vs Mecha Shark is not like the other movies in this category in the fact that instead of being "so bad it's good", it's just plain bad. 

When will my reflection show who I am inside?

I watched this movie with friends expecting a ridiculously absurd crapfest, but in a good way. What I got was an hour and ten minutes of boredom. Nothing happens at all in this film. It's obviously about a giant shark and a giant robot shark built to kill the aforementioned giant shark. However, until the last 15 minutes of the film, the two almost never come into contact with each other, except for the one time when they both jump out of the water and collide in midair in front of an airplane for the trailer shot. 

Exhilarating....

For a movie called Mega Shark Vs Mecha Shark, the mega shark and mecha shark don't do a lot of fighting. More like Mecha Shark VS My Attention Span, amirite? Anyway, the gist of the plot is that the mecha shark has an AI inside of it and the AI eventually goes haywire and completely ignores the mega shark it was created to destroy and goes on a rampage through the town. And here's where the only redeeming quality of this movie comes in: 

THE MECHA SHARK TRANSFORMS INTO A TANK

Complete with missiles, a set of metal teeth, and a desire to kill everything, the mecha shark tank makes its way through the town before one of the main characters an heros himself by jumping inside of the mecha shark's mouth to shut it down from the inside. Also, this little girl named Tracy always seems to get in the way of everything while this is going on and almost dies like fifty times because she's dumb and stands in front of a giant mecha shark tank as it's rolling right towards her. 

Freaking Tracy........

Anyhow, all in all, this movie is a huge disappointment. Being a "VS" movie and all, you expect some exciting fights between two giant monsters, but no, instead we get an interracial couple researching sharks and talking about how they're probably gonna have a kid after this is all over or something like that, I don't know, I was so bored watching this. Being an Asylum movie, you can expect the shots to be kinda decent, but everything else crappy. And it is. Oh boy, it all is. If you're like me and want to watch a fun "so bad it's good" monster movie, just take the safe bet and go with something from the Maneater Series instead of this drek. Mega Shark VS Mecha Shark gets 3 giant mecha shark tanks out of 10. I was gonna give it a 1, but that shark tank is too awesome to warrant that kind of score. Best avoid this one like the plague. 

The Babadook (2014) Review

Man, it's been a while, hasn't it? I've been out of commission for some time and that's not good. I felt like writing a review today, so let's get into it with one of the most confusing movies of 2014 (at least for me), The Babadook.

MANY SPOILERS AWAIT. TURN BACK NOW.

I was really excited for this movie when I heard about it. It was praised by critics and I had heard that it was a breath of fresh air to the modern horror genre; no cheap jump scares, no awfully written characters, and a real plot. I was stoked! 

For the most part, this movie is exactly what most critics say it is: a near perfect horror film. The first two thirds of this movie are incredible and I was terrified of it. It's hard to make a movie that actually scares me; like really scares me. I had trouble sleeping after watching this movie. It was scary enough to revert me back to a child-like state of hiding and whimpering under the covers. And then the last third of the movie comes and screws it all up. How? Well, I'll explain that a little later. Let's start with the plot.

A single mother is having a hard time keeping her rowdy 6-year-old son under control. No matter what she does, he always seems to get himself into trouble and he refuses to obey her at all. He's constantly making dangerous makeshift weaponry to fight against pretend monsters. It's especially hard for the mother because her husband and father of the son was killed in a car crash while he was on the way to the hospital when she was giving birth. So this single mother has to live her life constantly juggling the responsibility of caring for her out of control son and the grief of losing her husband. 

Those Aussies sure know how to bring the feels.

Anyway, one day, the mother finds a strange childrens book on her porch. The book is called The Babadook (bonus points for proper MLA format, underlining a book title, suck it English professor) and she decides that instead of throwing this strange item that she's never seen before away like any reasonable person would do, she's gonna take the book inside and read it to her son. At first it seems pretty normal, talking about an invisible friend called The Babadook that is friendly towards kids and plays with them, making his presence known by making three knocks. Then, it gets a little more serious, saying that if you find The Babadook, it'll kill you and make you never sleep again. 

Still, not the worst childrens horror book I've ever seen

Obviously, this scares the everloving piss out of the kid and the mother proceeds to throw the book out. Over the course of the next week or so, the child constantly talks about The Babadook and how it's gonna get him. This is accompanied by creepy knocking noises in the house, hallucinations, and a general fear of what's gonna happen next by the mother. The mother always tells the son that it's just a book and nothing's gonna happen, but then afterwards, something happens like her seeing the monster from the book or seeing a hallucination of her dead husband and becoming happy again, only to get scared again when that hallucination turns into the monster. Spooky stuff. By the way, through the whole movie, we're told of The Babadook, this incredibly scary creature that comes into your house and kills you. So what does this terrifying monster look like? 

The little kid from The Grudge all grown up in a top hat with Wolverine claws....

Anyway, the mother then proceeds to burn the book, which she thinks will stop all this madness. It doesn't. The book rematerializes itself and adds another page, which says that it's angry now and it's gonna get revenge for the mother trying to get rid of it. Here's where the movie, which was near perfect up to this point, takes a turn for the absolute worst. Let's take a little quiz: which type of horror movie do I hate the most? If your answer was generic demon possession movie, the congratulations, a winner is you! That's right folks, the last third of this movie is a generic demon possession movie! The Babadook makes its way into the mother's body and possesses her, making her do awful things like trying to kill her son and actually killing their pet dog :'(

This climax is just the son running away from the possessed mother until the Babadook decides to let her go and take it's true form: some giant dragon thing maybe? You can't tell because it's just a silhouette, but it's definitely big and kind of looks like a dragon. The mother and son cower in the corner as the dragon shadow moves towards them, making stock dragon roaring sound effects in the process. Then the mother screams at it to get away from them and......it does. That's it. That's the dramatic confrontation. The dragon shadow retreats to the basement and the mother locks it up down there. The epilogue shows that instead of trying to kill it, the mother is keeping the shadow dragon locked up in the basement for some reason. It's kinda dumb.

We sure showed him! ....I guess

That's the movie. The Babadook is overall, a terrific horror film. Well shot, well acted, great plot, great atmosphere, and then it all goes to crap once the mother gets possessed. I have never in my life seen a film go from good to bad so quickly. That being said, the last third of the film isn't worst thing I've ever seen, it's just incredibly disappointing. I know it's supposed to be some deep symbolism about how the monster is an embodiment of the mother's grief for her dead husband and the guilt of not being able to control her child and her keeping it in the basement is symbolic of her finally learning to live with those emotions and blah blah blah artsy fartsy crap. It's just a bad way to end your film that was amazing from the start. 

The Babadook is an Australian made film and as such, all the actors have Australian accents. However, that isn't a bother because of how incredibly well-acted this movie is. Seriously, the main actress gives an Oscar-worthy performance here. It's really a sight to behold. Plus, the child actor, while annoying sometimes, is one of the best child actors I've ever seen. He really knows how to bring a scene together. On top of the amazing acting, the direction of this movie is off the charts. The scary scenes stick with you because they're executed so well with the lighting and the music and it's all so good. Even the scenes that aren't supposed to be scary are well-shot. 

All in all, The Babadook was a really good horror flick that breathed new life into the modern horror genre for me. It's just a shame that the climax was as disappointing as it was. That being said, the climax doesn't ruin the entire movie; it's just a major hiccup in an otherwise spectacular film. Don't let me telling you that it was disappointing keep you from checking this movie out, because it's definitely a good movie and I highly recommend it. I give The Babadook 9 spooky shadow dragons out of 10. Definitely check it out if you haven't already! 

By the way, I'm trying to get back into the swing of reviewing. It's gonna happen slowly, but rest assured, it will happen. I might not crank out reviews at the rate I was like 5 months ago, but I'll still be trying my best to write more reviews. Thanks for all of your support!