Jennifer Kent Still Knows What Scares You

Years before she made The Babadook, Jennifer Kent had already lived through its scariest scene.

“The bug thing came from an experience I had when I was in acting school,” the Australian filmmaker tells Inverse. “All these cockroaches behind the fridge would appear in this little crack in the wallpaper. And so one day I peeled it back and it was just” — Kent shudders and trails off as the memory overtakes her — “I can't describe how revolting that was.”

If you haven’t seen The Babadook since its 2014 release (or, more likely, since it went viral on Netflix in 2017) you may have memory-holed this particularly disturbing moment in a movie full of them. Widowed mother Amelia Vanek (Essie Davis) is already struggling to raise her young, behaviorally challenged son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) when they suddenly become haunted by a demonic presence called the Babadook. The creature first appears in a disturbing pop-up book that traumatizes Noah, before possessing Amelia directly, giving her visions of cockroach infestations and ultimately goading her to murder her own son and pet dog.

“We were approached to do a gay Hollywood kind of musical.”

The movie landed quietly at Sundance back in 2014 but found a home on Netflix. The Babadook became a cultural phenomenon (and somehow, a gay icon) even as Kent refused various requests to make sequels, spinoffs, and adaptations. Now, a decade later, she’s taking a victory lap as her directorial debut screens in 500 theaters this weekend.

Speaking to Inverse the morning after flying from Australia to New York, Kent is excited to dive back into the film that launched her career. Tucked away in a meeting room within IFC’s Manhattan offices, we discuss everything from The Babadook’s themes of mental health and grief to how the movie breaks a major cultural taboo to what she thinks the titular monster may be hiding underneath his oversized coat. Kent also teased her next project (a new film based on a “horror novel with an author that I just adore” which should be announced in the coming weeks) and reflected on the one Babadook spinoff she almost approved.

“We were approached to do a gay Hollywood kind of musical, and I thought it could be funny,” she says. “But it's not happening, so don't be holding your breath for a Babadook musical.”

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

I wanted to tell you that I hadn't watched The Babadook since around 2017, and then I watched it on Saturday night and it’s so good. It feels so timeless. It's so scary in a way that wasn't expecting. I watch a lot of horror movies, but this one really hits a nerve.

That's great to hear. We watched the end of it last night at the Q&A, me and a friend, and it was surreal to see it. I haven't seen it in 10 years.

Did you rewatch it when it sort of blew up in 2017? It was on Netflix. Everyone was talking about it. Did you revisit it then?

No, I didn't, which I don't think is uncommon for filmmakers. You see it scores of times — 50, 60 times — before it's finished. I used to be able to see it in my head.

Was there anything that surprised you last night from rewatching the ending?

Watching Noah brought back a rush of memories of the production and working with him. He's now 15 or 16. He was five when we shot it.

I wanted to ask about Noah. I was reading about how you kind of kept him in the dark while filming. He thought he was the hero of this movie, and he didn't quite understand a lot of the darker stuff.

I wasn't really trying to protect him. He knew that if he couldn't save his mom, she might die. I don't think I kept the darkness from him. What I did was, I shifted the focus of the story so he was in the center. He understood how important it was. It got to the point where his mother, who is a child psychologist, she said to him one day, “I can't believe how focused you are, Noah, because you never focus at school.” And he said, “Yeah, but mom, this is important.”

Do you know if he’s watched the whole movie since then?

At the time he couldn't watch it all. I think he was six when it was released. I distinctly remember the screening. He went in and watched the first part, as soon as it got to a certain point that his mom and I had decided on, his dad took him out of the theater. He fully understood it was too scary. I think he’s probably seen it now.

I did speak to his mom about the 10th anniversary and would he want to be interviewed, but she declined. She feels it’s a special part of his life and she wants it to remain his childhood experience.

“It’s the gray areas that scare me.”

For a lot of people who’ve watched The Babadook, a huge theme of this movie is mental illness and dealing with it. How do you live with a mental illness that never goes away? Was that, to you, a core message of the movie?

It wasn’t, because how I came at it was: my dad died. So like everyone who loses a parent they love, I was grieving and just doing it. I didn't talk to anyone outside of family for four weeks and just really did the job of grieving, which is a job and it's exhausting. And in that process, I thought, How painful would it be if you couldn't feel that? What would it be like if a person could not grieve and just pushed down and pushed down on their feelings, even dark feelings, until they split off from this person and started to terrorize them? I wasn't even thinking about mental illness because I wasn't thinking about it in a psychological way.

I think that's why the movie is so powerful, and the ending specifically. There’s this idea that you can't suppress your problems. You can't ignore them forever. There's a way to live with it and live your life.

Yeah, and in fact, you kind of have to. The problem is that people are trying to get to a point of: Oh, that horrible experience. I'll no longer think of it and I'll be happy. But happiness can exist amongst terrible things happening.

The house in The Babadook was built specifically for the film because you wanted it to have a Victorian look. Did you design the house to allow certain scenes or moments to happen?

It was a godsend, actually. I wrote the script when I was living in Sydney and terrace houses are everywhere. It's like Little Britain in that there are scores of them on every street. When we got to Adelaide, they didn't exist, so I thought, Oh shit, we're going to have to build this thing. But it ended up being an absolute boon.

We built it so we could take out walls. We could extend the set. We could make it smaller. We could do things with it that reflected her state of mind as well. We could crack walls. We could smash ceilings. Towards the end, the house starts to fall apart a bit.

This is more of a broad question, but why do you think The Babadook is so scary? What is it about this movie that feels more visceral than a lot of other horror?

I can only speak for my own experience. I wrote something that frightened me. But I think the idea of going mad, or not knowing if this thing is real or if I'm imagining it, that to me is the scariest thing. A lot of horror when it doesn't work is too literal. It’s the gray areas that scare me.

That's part of it, right? You don't really know if you’re in her head. Essie Davis’ performance is also incredible.

Oh, she's so complex. That's the thing of having a consummate actor embrace the role and lift it so it's even better.

I think one of the scariest scenes for me is that soup with the glass in it. It's like, who put that there? Was it the child? Was it her? Or was it this thing that he's insisting did it?

You’re also doing something really interesting in the film where, in the first act it feels like a standard evil child horror movie. But then there’s that hard shift where the mom becomes the villain, which is a very fun subversion of a classic horror trope into something more unique. Was that intentional?

It was very intentional. It's really taboo for a mother to want to kill a child. That’s why I think the film sits well in horror. In drama, you couldn't go to the edge of that. It would be probably more heavily criticized. But in horror, all bets are off. The way I placed the script was that we are Amelia and we are finding this child unbearable to the point of, Oh, just medicate him and then everything will go away. It’s a tough, bold decision she makes to medicate this little boy, but just a terrible decision because all it does is bring everything up and straight to her face, rather than filtering through the boy.

That makes a lot of sense. What you said about breaking taboos also helps explain The Babadook is so scary. It's a taboo that you wouldn't expect even from a lot of horror.

And you don’t see any literature about it either. It’s even a taboo thing to write about. But then, postnatal psychosis is terrifyingly real for the women to go through it.

“I can't think of anything more terrifying actually, than a book turning up, describing your life.”

To get a little more granular, I had a couple of questions after rewatching the movie. When it comes to the book, the mom tears it up and when it comes back, we see more pages the second time. I don’t know if you have an answer to this, but were those pages there the whole time? Or are more pages being added to the book later in the movie?

I think they’re added.

Okay. That's what I thought too, but I wasn't so sure. That's so scary.

Yes. Yeah, I think they’re being added. I can't think of anything more terrifying actually, than a book turning up, describing your life. Yeah, it's really scary.

And then my other granular question is about the cockroaches. Those scenes are really disturbing whenever she starts hallucinating roaches. But what I realized, which I didn't see before, is that the Babadook also kind of moves and sounds like a cockroach. He is very bug-like. Was that intentional?

Yes.

You don't ever get to see what's behind his coat. But I assume he's like a big gross bug.

Well, we don't know. I mean, he could be wind or he could be just unable to be viewed. There's a bit at the end where Amelia sort of sees it, but we don't. And I deliberately wanted it that way.

The bug thing came from an experience I had when I was in acting school. All these cockroaches behind the fridge would appear in this little crack in the wallpaper. And so one day I peeled it back and it was just... I can't describe how revolting that was.

So yeah, I wanted to know how the Babadook moves and sort of insect-like made sense.

“I've got something we want to shoot next year that is super exciting to me. It’s based on a horror novel with an author that I just adore.”

Moving beyond just the movie itself, it's inspired a lot of stuff. The Babadook has become a sort of LGBT icon. The Simpsons even did a parody of the film a couple of years ago. How do you feel about the transformative power of the character?

It's such a big compliment to have a film I made viewed in that way. And then people make other art off this piece of art. I get a big kick out of it. It's kept the film alive. We started on two screens, and now with this re-release, 10 years later we’re on 500 screens.

You hope that people see a film. That's all you hope for. But I love all of that stuff. I love fan art. It's brilliant.

I read another interview you did recently where you mentioned that even though you never want to make a sequel, you considered an idea for a Babadook musical. Can you tell me anything about that?

Well, I've been approached a couple of times about a stage play, and I thought, How are you going to do that? But we were approached to do a gay Hollywood kind of musical, and I thought it could be funny. I would have to heavily have a say on the idea, but it was far enough away from the original that I thought it could be just an homage. But it's not happening, so don't be holding your breath for a Babadook musical.

But I’m more focused on things I want to do now. I've got six or seven scripts I'm schlepping out to get made.

Are you interested in doing another horror movie in the future?

Yes, and I am working with — I can’t say what it is because we are just contracting — but I’ve got something we want to shoot next year that is super exciting to me. It’s based on a horror novel with an author that I just adore. Hopefully, in a couple of weeks, we'll be able to announce.

I was thinking a bit about that moment in 2017 when The Babadook really blew up, and around the same time, we also got a few other really smart horror films like Get Out and Hereditary. Do you feel like you were part of a movement?

I do, but it was just sort of accidental. It wasn't like we in 2017 thought, “Oh, I know!” There's such a long tradition of horror from the 1920s or even the birth of cinema. There are masterpieces of horror all the way through. Like Carl Dreyer, his film Vampyr. There are just so many. We were just tapping into something that had gone before us and gave us permission.

I agree horror has been very smart for a long time, but I do think there was a bit of a moment where a few things coalesced.

What’s changed now is that the money people can see that there’s money in films like ours. Don't get me wrong, I love Halloween and Friday the 13th. But I think that they just can make money, these kinds of films.

I think if The Babadook had been released later, it would've made a bigger splash initially than it did.

The Babadook is in theaters September 19-22.