Trivia / The Babadook

• Acting in the Dark: Noah Wiseman was only told a child friendly version of the story, and some of the nastier scenes (such as Amelia screaming at Samuel) were filmed with stand-ins so as not to scare him.
• Breakthrough Hit: Jennifer Kent was put on the map with this film, and even talked about as a potential director for Wonder Woman (2017) because of it.
• Colbert Bump: The Babadook garnered a lot of positive word of mouth after William Friedkin tweeted that he'd never seen a "more terrifying" film.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Greece: The Pages of Horror
  • Romania: The Black Man
  • Taiwan: Ghost Knock
  • Turkey: Nightmare
  • Vietnam: Book of Ghosts
• Creator Cameo: The Babadook itself was played and voiced by Tim Purcell, the art director assistant on the film.
• Defictionalization: A crowd-funding campaign to produce real copies of "Mister Babadook" has proved successful.
• Enforced Method Acting: In order to get the reaction shots of Noah Wiseman looking terrified, Essie Davis would threaten to "take your legos and throw it into the river" (as they didn't want to scare him with the movie's dark themes).
• The Foreign Subtitle:
  • Japan: The Babadook, the Monster of Darkness
• Inspiration for the Work: The director (who also wrote the screenplay) claims that she got the idea from a friend of hers who dealt with her son's fear of the boogeyman by pretending to talk to it.
• Never Work with Children or Animals: Jennifer Kent has admitted that filming was "stressful" because of Noah Wiseman's young age - and she was determined to make sure he was protected on set.
• One-Book Author: As of 2023, this is Noah Wiseman's only film role.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Word of God is that Samuel was going to be a little older - and they auditioned eight and nine-year-old child actors. Noah Wiseman however was only six years old, and the innocence he brought to the character resulted in him being cast.
  • An early idea was to have the film in black and white, influenced by 1950s B-movies. However, Jennifer Kent soon lost interest in the idea.

---