All kids are scared of monsters hanging out under their beds and hiding in their closets. But what happens when a parent is afraid of the very same monster as their child, and knows that it's not just a figment of a childhood imagination?
That's the set-up for a new Australian horror film that's been scaring audiences at the Sundance Film Festival this month. An Official Selection at the festival, The Babadook is the debut feature film of Jennifer Kent, which is based on a short film that she made back in 2005. Early reviews have seen the words 'terrifying' and 'disturbing' attached to the movie, and if the creepy trailer is any indication, those are descriptive words that it indeed does earn.
The film centers around mother Amelia and her six-year-old son Samuel, whose father was killed while Amelia was on the way to the hospital to give birth to him. Initially finding herself unable to love Samuel, due to the connection to her husband's death, the two are brought together when a strange entity invades their home, which appears to be the same creature from a children's book that shows up at their house.
Check out the trailer for The Babadook below, which doesn't yet have a release date.
To hold you over until The Babadook comes out, click the play button to watch Monster, Jennifer Kent's 2005 short film that it's based on!