YMMV / The Babadook

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The Babadook is only ever seen by a woman who might not be completely mentally healthy and a little boy who definitely isn't. While the two of them see a monster stalking them and making Amelia do bad things, all a stranger might see is a woman abusing her out-of-control son. Amelia used to be a writer; did she make the Babadook's book herself? Is the Babadook real or just a form that Amelia's and Sam's shared madness takes? Or more subtly, is it an image they latch onto after reading the book to cope with their fears? Amelia would be assigning her grief to the image, imagining her breakdown as possession, and Sam would be assigning his fear of his mother's mental instability to the Babadook, making depressed and unstable Amelia the monster he is preparing to fight?
  • Is Sam an annoyingly disobedient child with an Ambiguous Disorder, or is he simply a normal loving boy suffering from abuse by Amelia for years? Given her mental state, she may have been abusing him without even realising. She snaps at him several times even before the Babadook arrives... and the "supernatural" scenes of Sam being slammed into the wall make much more sense if Amelia is doing it herself. When under the Babadook's influence she seemingly admits to sometimes wishing he died in place of Oskar - something that would make any kid grow up "wrong". When asking for food he is genuinely soft spoken and respectful, suggesting he is perhaps not naturally as abrasive as he appears to outsiders.
  • The film seems to go within either being an allegory for depression (seeing how the Babadook represents her suffering from Oskar's death and resentment of Sam and despite defeating it in the end, it still is alive, considering how once with depression or grief, you can never get rid of it) or making us believe the Babadook an actual evil entity.
  • Is the Babadook evil, or just exploiting their fears so that it can feed? Does it even have a capacity for good and evil? Or is it, in its own twisted way, teaching Amelia how to deal with her grief?
  • Is Amelia's sister Claire just a standard-issue Jerkass, or is she frustrated (to the point of extreme tactlessness, admittedly) by a loved one who's stuck in a self-destructive behavioral pattern and won't seek the professional help she and her child very obviously need? She does, to her credit, try to show some concern for Amelia, at least until Sam's behavior starts setting her off.
  • Is Ruby just a bullying little brat, or does she have a less-extreme case of the same Ambiguous Disorder as Sam, that caused her to berate her cousin because she, too, can't help but speak whatever comes into her head?
    • Does she hate Sam for no reason or is it that she sees how upset and frustrated her mother is with Amelia and blames Sam for it?
  • During the first appearance of the Social Workers, they seem to regard Amelia with disgust and suspicion and shoot her many dirty looks and condescending remarks. At this point, however, she is suffering mentally to the point of hallucinating cockroaches. Later in the movie, the two seem comparatively jovial and friendly, genuinely concerned about helping both Amelia and Sam. Are they actually sneering Jerkass only helping the mother and son now that it's convenient for them to do so, or are they good people that were distorted by Amelia's disturbed state?
  • Mrs. Roach mentions that Oskar "always spoke his mind," just like Samuel. Is it possible that Amelia and Oskar both had strong genetic predispositions for two different mental illnesses, and Oskar was getting hit with both of them, while his mother is cracking from just one? When you factor in Ruby's Jerkass behavior, despite having a much more supportive and loving environment, the idea that there are genetic factors involved is not out of the question.
• Award Snub: Was completely and utterly overlooked at all major award shows.
• Base-Breaking Character: Samuel is viewed by many to be an annoying brat, due to his habit of incessant talking and screaming. It could be argued that this was the point, to make the audience sympathize with Amelia and her own feelings of frustration with Samuel. However some can see Samuel as a Woobie he tends to come off as a super timid and shy kid who unfortunately doesn't understand why his mother (who's still mourning the death of her husband who passed on the same day he was born) is such a ball of stress. He's just as broken as she is and he doesn't understand why.
• Hype Backlash: The major criticism is that the movie is primarily a drama about depression, and the Babadook seems to have been inserted into the story mainly to make the movie more marketable. However, many believe the opposite, that the Babadook is a symbolic device that enhances the film.
• Jerkass Woobie: Some may see Sam as an irritating and obnoxious little brat who seems to have no mental filter on what he says and wilfully ignores his mother. He even has a creepy obsession with weapons. But is he driving her insane with his acting out, or is his behaviour a reaction to years of her insanity? Sam is not the character that goes murderously berserk - his mother is. She snaps the neck of the family dog, while he cuddles it and tries to keep it safe. All his prepared traps and weapons turn out to be effective at subduing her, suggesting he has subconsciously been preparing to defend himself from her for years. He even apologises for hurting her when she's trying to kill him. His love for his mother goes to the extent that even after she brandishes a kitchen knife at him and chokes him almost to death, he expresses a desire to "protect" her and doesn't hurt her when she's helpless. In hindsight on a second viewing you're likely to feel far more sympathy for the little guy, since having a mentally ill mother and a dead father the entire time you were growing up would take a huge toll on almost any kid.
• LGBT Fanbase: The Internet had a lot of fun with the discovery of Netflix categorizing the film under "LGBT Movies"◊, leading to the Babadook becoming a joke gay icon. Within the gay community itself, especially on social media like Twitter and Tumblr, the meme was embraced and the Babadook became a symbol for 2017's Pride Month. The fact that the movie's premise practically invites Applicability probably helps.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The "Why can't you just be normal?!" scene is easily exploitable.
  • Due to Netflix mistakenly categorizing the film as an LGBT movie, many have claimed that the Babadook is, in fact, gay.
• Misaimed Fandom: There are many fans (and detractors) whose reactions to the film are based on face value that the titular entity is a standard, literal horror-movie monster, without caring about the more symbolic interpretation to the story, which to be fair was intended to be Fridge Brilliance for the audience. However, it's still been praised on that front for its scares coming from the atmosphere rather than a Jump Scare every scene.
• Narm: As haunting and tense as the movie often is, there are a few moments that can take you out of the action.
  • The final confrontation with the Babadook brings out basically every "scary" Stock Sound Effect in the book. Why is a Humanoid Abomination roaring like a velociraptor or The Great Animal?! Or neighing like Motaro?
  • The Babadook's face is deeply creepy in the story book. However, when he actually appears, it... doesn't quite have the same effect. When that crosses your mind, it becomes easy for him to start reminding you of the The Penguin or Marilyn Manson.
  • When Sam is trying to fend off possessed!Amelia, he uses some of his homemade booby traps. One of them even causes a rock to bonk her on the head, in a shot that looks more like a comedy bit out of Home Alone.
  • Some think Amelia's a bit too over-the-top during her possession. "I AM YOUR MOTHER!" is one of the biggest examples.
  • The following exchange:
  Amelia: Why can't you just be normal?!
  Samuel: *screams*
  • It's hard to take a monster seriously when it's called The Babadook.
• Narm Charm: For some, the Babadook using Stock Sound Effects in the final confrontation actually works, as it's consistant with how it rarely if ever speaks on its own and largely communicates through other forms. It's also the point where the Babadook is being stripped of its terrifying facade and forced into retreat.
• Paranoia Fuel: You can't get rid of the Babadook once you know about it. We know about the Babadook. It's implied that Amelia's grief over her husband's death, as well as her exasperation with her son's behavior, is what brought the Babadook into existence in the first place. This just makes it worse, since the kind of tragedy that spawned it can (and does) happen to anybody.
• The Scrappy:
  • Amelia's sister, flat out cutting her sister out of her life because she can't stand her kid and her sister's depressed mental state. While she tells Amelia she can't keep mourning Oskar's death, she doesn't help the matter by isolating her own damn blood simply because she and her kid are acting weird. Also, her daughter is objectively terrible, hurting her case even more.
  • Ruby seems to have a sizeable hatedom for mocking Samuel (who, in her defense, is an obnoxious Creepy Child who brings weapons to school) despite having very little screentime. In his defence, she told him his dad died so he wouldn't have to put up with Samuel.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • This is probably the closest thing we will ever get to a Laughing Jack movie.
  • To The Exorcist. Both of them are about single mothers struggling to help their children cope with mysterious mental illnesses that turn out to be supernatural, both of them prominently feature Demonic Possession and heavily isolated children, and both of them take place almost entirely in the family home. Much like The Exorcist, The Babadook is generally agreed to be all the more effective as a horror film because it focuses more on the disintegration of the family rather than on the monster that causes it.
• Ugly Cute: The first half of the Babadook's book is legitimately adorable. Even when the drawings begin to take a creepier turn, he almost looks like a gothic Totoro.
• Values Dissonance: In the United States the idea of giving a child like Samuel a monitor instead of just kicking him out of school actually seems amazingly tolerant. Amelia, however, is horrified by the idea. In Australia, you can't actually kick out a student at school if he is suffering from a disorder that can influence them into acting like a jerk, which Sam clearly does suffer from. He can, however, be suspended and get detentions. It might also confuse American viewers that one incidence of bad behavior from Sam is bringing his homemade (and perfectly functional) crossbow to school with him, when children in the U.S. can and have gotten kicked out of school for simply drawing pictures of weaponry.
• Viewer Pronunciation Confusion: Many people read the last syllable of the title as "duke", but it actually rhymes with (and is rhymed in-film with) "look".^note In Australian English, the assumed pronunciation would be that it rhymes with 'look'.

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