The Babadook
Before the film, health and science journalist Chelsea Conaboy (author of Mother Brain: How Neuroscience Is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood) will discuss the major structural and functional brain changes that new parents experience.
In filmmaker Jennifer Kent’s instant cult classic, a mysterious and unsettling children's book forces a grieving widow to confront her resentment of her imaginative young son—and the possibility that his terrifying nightmares might be real.
About THE BABADOOK
Six years after the violent death of her husband, Amelia (Essie Davis) is at a loss. She struggles to discipline her ‘out of control’ 6 year-old, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), a son she finds impossible to love. Samuel’s dreams are plagued by a monster he believes is coming to kill them both. When a disturbing storybook called The Babadook turns up at their house, Samuel is convinced that the Babadook is the creature he’s been dreaming about. His hallucinations spiral out of control, he becomes more unpredictable and violent. Amelia, genuinely frightened by her son’s behaviour, is forced to medicate him. But when Amelia begins to see glimpses of a sinister presence all around her, it slowly dawns on her that the thing Samuel has been warning her about may be real.
About Chelsea Conaboy
Chelsea Conaboy is a journalist specializing in personal and public health. She was part of the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer prize–winning team for coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and more recently has worked as a magazine writer with bylines at The New York Times, Mother Jones, Politico, The Week, the Boston Globe Magazine, and others. She lives in Maine with her husband, their two young sons, and her own changing maternal brain.
