David Skal’s article, It’s Alive, I’m Afraid takes a flashback to the early 1960’s during a time when women were reproducing at colossal rates but were offered some relief by the new morning sickness drug known as Thalidomide. With the untested drug causing mass numbers of birth defects, children born with abnormalities quickly became known to the public as ‘Freaks’. Families found themselves in a living nightmare to care for and to raise their defective child. Resembling something of a Dr. Frankenstein’s creation, these ‘monstrous births’ brought much attention to the conversation and possibility of abortion. Americans quickly grew engrossed in freak sideshows and soon that fascination inspired horror films such as Rosemary’s Baby which featured a woman giving birth to a real life demon. The then abortion-rights conflict was displayed in the 1979 movie The Brood, portraying the horror of a fetus that terminates its own parents. The 60’s was a time of family hardships and fear that gave birth to a new era of horror for the Hollywood films industry.
David Skal’s article helps illustrate a two-sided wave of fear from Jennifer Kent’s film, The Babadook. The film along with the help of Skal’s article gives audience members a perspective of terror and fear from the parents point of view and the childs.
It is transparent from the beginning that Samuel is seen as different by his neighbors, relatives and even his classmates. Samuel is seen as a freak by his classmates and his cousin Ruby who torments him about the loss of his father, similar to tabloids in the 60’s putting babies and children on display labelling them ‘monsters’ due to their missing limbs and deformed facial features (pg. 290). Sam’s character is unpredictable, never knowing when he will act out in an aggressive or irrational manner to which he is capable of. This soon seems ironic as by the conclusion of the movie Amelia mutates into the nihilistic and menacing Babadook.
(Amelia becoming enraged as Sam stabs her in the leg with a kitchen knife.
Source: IFC Midnight, 2014, The Babadook.)
The film revolves around the car crash which sets off a series of events such as Amelia repressing her feelings of grief about her husband’s death which in turn impacts her relationship with Sam and in response makes him act out in rash and belligerent ways. Just as the car crash set the scene for the horrific events ahead in The Babadook, the drug, Thalidomide gave way to the birth defects which greatly impacted the economic and emotional lives of parents. Skal explains that the horror of babies born with severe birth defects equates to a tone of hostility between the living and the unborn or in Amelia’s case, the living and the deceased (pg.305).
Amelia’s castration anxiety is not only due to the loss of her husband but her complicated relationship with her son but can also be represented through the dark and gloomy tone throughout the film. She herself is conflicted to love Sam as she resents him because on the day he was born the love of her life died. In many horror films today, children symbolize a dark and evil essence that provokes feelings of fright (pg. 303). Similarly, Amelia elicits feelings of panic and anxiety as she watches Sam’s eerie obsession with Mister Babadook consume his actions which leads to abject consequences.
(Sam throwing a tantrum in the car. Source: IFC Midnight, 2014, The Babadook.)
In conclusion, The Babadook illustrates how when issues of relevance are neglected or overlooked that consequences of birth defects and broken relationships can occur.
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