Blu-ray

Arriving on a wave of critical acclaim, this Australian horror movie is the sort of shot in the arm the genre has been crying out for.

Written and directed by Jennifer Kent, The Babadook is an intense psychological thriller following a single mother (Essie Davis) and the six-year-old son (Noah Wiseman) she can't bring herself to love. Their already fractured relationship plumbs new depths when a creepy pop-up book appears in the house, bringing with it… Well that would be telling.

Smart and scary, The Babadook plumbs the darkest depths of your imagination for its nerve-frying frights. Truly unique and wholly satisfying – dim the lights and hit Play if you dare.

Picture: The movie frequently employs a deliberately muted colour palette with high-contrast lighting that gives it a rather bleached look. Thankfully, Icon's striking 2.40:1 transfer does a fine job of accurately recreating the subsequent combination of inky blacks, glaring whites and subtle shades of colour, with only a few instances of banding visible in strong light sources.

Regardless of how gloomy the film's visuals may look, loss of detail isn't a concern either. Intricate and well-resolved textures are present in close-ups and medium shots, be it the characters' clothing or the hand-drawn sketches in the Mr. Babadook pop-up book.
Picture rating: 4.5/5

Audio: While many modern horrors favour sudden audio cues that provide cheap scares on a regular schedule, The Babadook takes a subtler approach to sound design. Yet that's not to say that the DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix is lacking in dynamic range or scale – Noah Wiseman's screaming outbursts result in some truly piercing audio, in particular. Down at the other end of the sonic spectrum, booming knocks at the front door are loaded with bass, giving them a menacing weight.

Capping it all off is composer Jed Kurzel's creepy yet melodic score. Kept to the periphery of the mix for the bulk of the film's running time, Kurzel's eerie sound sculptures still manage to haunt every frame of the film, instilling you with a distinct sense of unease at all times. 
Audio rating: 4.5/5

Extras: Want to know more about the creation of The Babadook? Your first port of call should be They Call Him Mr. Babadook, a particularly informative 35-minute Making of… documentary that features interviews with the film's director, producer and leading lady.

Supporting this are a four self-explanatory production featurettes – Special Effects: The Stabbing Scene (three minutes), There's No Place Like Home: Creating the House (10 minutes), The Stunts (four minutes) and Illustrating Evil: Creating the Book (seven minutes). Be aware, however, that the last of these is an Easter Egg that only appears when all the other extras have been viewed.

Icon's Blu-ray also includes a trio of trailers and a pair of photo galleries – The Book (46 images) and The Poster (26 images). Best of all, though, is Jennifer Kent's original 2005 short film Monster (11 minutes), which she expanded into The Babadook.
Extras rating: 3.5/5

We say: There's nothing scary about the way this stunning horror film has been treated on Blu-ray

The Babadook, Icon Film Distribution, Region B BD, £20 Approx
HCC VERDICT: 4.5/5