Jennifer Kent

Good pick.

This is Jennifer Kent, the Australian filmmaker's movie.

And It's the only movie that's ever made me exclaim in a theater, oh, F that.

But I'm not much of a yeller in a theater, but that one really did it for me.

Like, we all have a list.

Like, Rose Glass, Jennifer Kent, Karen Kusama, Prano Bailey Bond, Zoe Widock.

Like, people who made amazing maybe one feature, two features, and then they're not being tapped anymore.

to direct Insidious.

The Babadook is literally a character born from a storybook, yet its silhouette feels like a relic of early cinema monsters.

Jennifer Kent purposely drew on silent film tropes to give him that uncanny, almost theatrical presence.

That blend of the old and new keeps audiences both unsettled and oddly fascinated in the contemporary scare scene.

What's fascinating is how Kent had to balance psychological depth with visual design for a creature that doesn't have a traditional costume.

I don't know if it quite counts as horror, but she does kill a bunch of people, so I'll chalk it up as horror.

This is a Black comedy, and it plays with this idea of almost the same kind of concept of Jennifer's body, where Jennifer goes, I'm not killing people, I'm killing boys, or something like that.

And that's the same mentality we get in The Love Witch.

We have this beautiful young witch who just wants to be loved so bad, but men suck so much.

I think this movie is as responsible as anything for the elevated horror movement that picked up steam in the mid 2010s, and it's kept chugging along to this day.

Many people rag on this movie because of the kid performance in it, but I actually think he's excellent at what he is there to do, and that is to be annoying as fuck.

This is 2014's The Babadook, written and directed by Jennifer Kent.

I know the grief and overcoming trauma narrative has become played out at this point for many, but it felt very fresh in this movie, and it's handled in such an interesting way.

Something is so widely loved.

And then we also kind of touch on as well, the fact that the Babadook is going to be screening there and there's going to be an introduction by Jennifer Kent as well, which is pretty impressive.

It's a really, really great lineup and I'm really, really stoked.

And so is my dog who you can hear in the background, just getting so excited by it.

And so you're sort of having that love letter from the past to the present day and being able to highlight and identify those components that the audience hopefully can feel some connection or empathy with.

I want to also talk about probably one of the greatest Australian films ever made, which is the Babadook.

And you've got the great Jennifer Kent there speaking to it as well.

And I believe it's closing the program as well.

what is it about Australia with this and the Filipos why is it there's no there's no Saturn is also Australian

see Jennifer Kent yeah Jennifer Kent Babadook the Babadook

Something in the water.

Over Australia.

Dang bad.

The director, Jennifer Kent, she's also known for The Nightingale.

Okay,

I'm sorry.