The Babadook

The Babadook (2014) is Jennifer Kent's psychological horror, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Amelia is raising her son Samuel alone after her husband died in a car crash while driving her to the hospital to give birth. Six years on, the grief hasn't lifted, and the boy has grown anxious and hard to control.

One night Samuel pulls a pop-up book off the shelf that nobody remembers buying. Out steps the Babadook, a figure in a tall black hat who knocks louder the harder you deny him. Essie Davis plays a mother worn down to nothing, while young Noah Wiseman is the child no one will believe. Before long it's unclear who's more frightening: the thing from the book or the sleepless woman it haunts.

This was Kent's feature debut, grown out of her short film Monster. She leaned on practical effects over CGI, letting the house, the shadows and the sound design do the scaring, and the creature has since become shorthand for grief left unprocessed. Stream The Babadook (2014) online on iFILM.