Amelia is a widow with a six-year-old son. In this expansion, a few extra characters are introduced, before diminishing in significance or disappearing - something that makes the film feel a little unfinished but also appropriately unpredictable.Īs the mother, Amelia, the excellent, chameleon-like Essie Davis ( Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries) is a pale, frazzled figure.
It expands on elements in Kent's 10-minute black-and-white short, Monster, which is, like The Babadook, the story of a mother, a small child called Samuel, a monster under the bed and a mood of play and fear.įor the feature, Kent creates more characters and context, and develops more fully the darker aspects of the mother-child relationship, and also the destructive power of grief.
