The Babadook, maternal gothic, and the 'woman's horror film'

Abstract

Like many Australian films, The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014) initially fared far better overseas than it did at home. Arguably, this can be attributed to several factors that apply to Australian cinema as a whole: risk-averse programming that favours US productions backed by big marketing budgets, the associated tendency for Australian films to be limited to short runs in independent cinemas, along with escalating cinema ticket prices and increasing competition from television in terms of the availability of ‘quality’ drama (see Dow 2014). Certainly, as Monica Tan (2014) points out, the film’s positioning as art-house in Australia and its modest marketing campaign mitigated against its exhibition in multiplexes and more mainstream outlets, unlike the more extensive campaign that supported its relatively widespread release in the UK, for example. That said, it seems that ‘Australians still want to see Australian stories’ (Dow 2014), even if those stories must succeed internationally before being embraced locally.