25 things you didn’t know about your favorite horror movies

The Babadook – The seal of approval from iconic horror director

Even though The Babadook became somewhat of a gay icon and Internet sensation after the film was mistakenly listed as an LGBT movie on Netflix, don’t be mistaken: The Babadook is, without a doubt, a terrifying film.

Amelia lost her husband in a car crash while they were driving to the hospital to give birth to their son, Samuel. Now, widowed, she works in a nursing home and struggles to raise her son alone. Samuel’s increasingly erratic behavior and extreme fear of monsters is starting to affect every aspect of their lives.

One night when Amelia is reading to Samuel to calm him down, they’re both disturbed by the mysterious story Mister Babadook, a pop-up book with graphic images of the supernatural entity tormenting people. Samuel is haunted by the book, and even after his mother rips it up and throws it out, strange things keep happening in their home.

Audiences were hooked for a reason, but it was one fan in particular that stands out: William Friedkin. The name may not immediately ring a bell, but Friedkin is the director of The Exorcist, one of the scariest movies of all time. He said on Twitter, about The Babadook: “I’ve never seen a more terrifying film than THE BABADOOK. It will scare the hell out of you as it did me.”

What most fans of the film probably don’t know is that the film’s writer and director, Jennifer Kent, was inspired to write The Babadook by a friend who was a single mother. Like the mother in the movie, her son was traumatized by a monster he kept seeing around their house, or so he said. Kent made a short film about it in 2005 named Monster but returned to the story to create The Babadook.