The 2014 Australian independent horror film featuring a pop-up book monster named Mr. Babadook is The Babadook. It was written and directed by Australian filmmaker Jennifer Kent in her feature directorial debut.
The story follows Amelia, a grieving single mother, and her young son Samuel, who discovers a sinister pop-up book called Mister Babadook. After the creature appears in the book, Samuel becomes convinced it is real, while Amelia’s exhaustion and grief make the threat increasingly difficult to separate from her own psychological distress.
The film developed from Kent’s 2005 short film Monster, which also centered on a mother and child threatened by a frightening creature. The Babadook premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2014 and became known for using practical, expressionistic horror rather than relying mainly on jump scares or graphic violence.
A common mix-up is calling the monster “the Babadook” as though it were simply the film’s title character; in the story, the name comes from the book’s repeated warning that the creature cannot easily be banished once it is acknowledged.