The Babadook (2014)

The story of an absolutely unbearable brat of a child who never shuts up for a second about his delusions of things that go bump in the night, and freaks out everybody who interacts with him, child and adult alike. The father was lost in a horrific car accident on the way to the kid's birth, and all of dad's stuff is locked in the basement like a depressing shrine.

One of the bumps starts coming in the night, much to his mother's chagrin. Is it an actual bump, or merely the mother's sleep-deprived hallucinations? It leaves absolutely fantastic pop-up books of gruesome horrors on their doorstep.

Mom takes a The Shining spiral with a Requiem for a Dream execution into exasperated madness, and brings her son unwillingly along for the ride.

Unfortunately, for all of the exciting build-up, it's one of those horror movies where the great evil is defeated by simply yelling loudly in frustration. I'm pretty sure this is a story about the importance of bottling up your traumas and hiding them away in a deep, dark place. A healthy amount of psychological repression, you know? You can't stop traumas from happening, but you have to keep them nicely walled off from the rest of your day-to-day life, tending to them carefully to prevent them from growing.

Even if the haunting story falls a bit flat at the end, it's handily one of the most well-made horror films of the decade. I sure do want a copy of the pop-up book.