Every once in a while, a meme shows up online along these lines: on the left is a picture of Franklin (Paul A. Partain) from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), on the right is a picture of “the boy” (Noah Wiseman) from The Babadook (2014) and the caption says, “You can only kill two.” Now, of course, I understand it is meant to be a joke and that they are both fictional characters, but as the parent of autistic children, I can’t help but feel a twinge of pain in my chest when I see it or something like it.
These memes are, after all, coming from the horror community, a group that at least claims to take pride in being misfits. One who flies the flag of acceptance of the outcast. But I am not here to scold. Rather, I’d like to attempt to reframe the conversation.
As we near the end of this year’s Autism Awareness, or better yet, Autism Acceptance Month, I’d like to make the case for “the boy” from The Babadook being one of the most important representative characters of recent years and one of the great heroes of modern horror. To begin with, let’s start by calling him by his name.
As his mother Amelia (Essie Davis) says to his teacher and principal in the film, “Please stop calling him ‘the boy.’ His name is Samuel.”
Though it is never overtly stated, it is clear from Samuel’s behavior, interactions with other people, and dialogue from the film that he has Autism Spectrum Disorder. That said, it should be made clear that ASD is a spectrum and manifests differently in each person. It has been well said, “If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.” My own children are a good example of this. Though all are autistic, you could not ask for three more unique individuals. Each of them handles personal interactions, their environment, and emotions in vastly different ways. That said, the portrayal of Amelia and Samuel is, to me, the most realistic depiction I have ever seen of what it is like to be the parent of an autistic child.
First, the film sets up the challenges. As much as well-meaning people have tried to reframe autism as being just a different way of looking at the world and not a disability, it is, by definition, a disability. If it is not disabling, it is not diagnosable as autism. In Samuel’s case, he is unable to read social norms and adhere to them, something that is common for people with autism. The “unwritten rules” of society that come naturally to most neurotypical people don’t always make sense to the neurodivergent. As a result, Samuel’s cousin Ruby (Chloe Hurn) tells him people don’t like him because he’s weird.
I can relate to this personally. My oldest son makes noises and flaps his hands when he is excited, something that has been known to make classmates and the children of family friends uncomfortable. In fact, the word “weird” was used by a peer to describe him to others. For the most part, however, my oldest also comes across as the most emotionally detached of my children and is generally able to let things like that just roll off his back. I sometimes describe him as the Mr. Spock of our family—the logical and unemotional one. That said, if he sees those close to him being harmed or people suffering injustice, he is extremely passionate and emotional.
The difficulty in understanding social norms also leads to Samuel’s tendency to say exactly what he is thinking. He freely shares with a stranger in the grocery store that his “dad’s in the cemetery. He got killed driving mommy to the hospital to have me.” While spending some time with their elderly neighbor, Gracie Roach (Barbara West), Samuel loudly declares to his mother, “Mrs. Roach has Parkinson’s; that’s why she shakes like this,” before imitating the kindly woman’s tremors. Amelia’s answer is, “Samuel, you don’t have to say everything that goes through your head.” I have experienced much the same in my own life, and it can come across as a shocking lack of tact. In reality, however, it is an expression of pure honesty. Unfortunately, that honesty can sometimes be hurtful and alienating to people, who then, in turn, alienate the autistic person who said it.
Bullying and ostracization are all-too-common aspects of life for many people with autism. In Samuel’s case, it comes largely from his cousin Ruby and indirectly from Amelia’s sister Claire (Hayley McElhinney). In one sequence, Claire suggests that Ruby and Samuel not share their birthday this year. This one hits close to home for me. Though the situation is different from the film, I will never forget the year that no one came to my daughter’s birthday party. To this day, I cannot enjoy Paddington 2 the way most people seem to. It just hurts too much.
At Ruby’s party, Samuel hides away in a treehouse, and a gut-wrenching dual scene takes place. In one location, Claire tells Amelia that she doesn’t come around her house anymore “because I can’t stand being around your son” and twists the knife further by saying, “you can’t stand being around him yourself.” At the same time, Ruby tells Samuel, “Your dad died so he didn’t have to be with you…and your mom doesn’t want you. No one wants you,” which unfortunately leads to Samuel injuring Ruby.
This culminates in the film’s most notorious scene, the one that is usually pictured in the memes—Samuel’s meltdown in the backseat of the car. This is an example of sensory overload. People with autism thrive on routine and concrete plans. When those routines are unexpectedly interrupted, the brain fights back with uncontrolled levels of activity, and what appears to be a tantrum or meltdown occurs. I have experienced multiple overloads with my children, and they can be frightening and frustrating. One of my children would regularly kick the seat in the car, just like Samuel, when what, to a neurotypical brain, would be a minor change in routine became a moment of extreme overstimulation. Another reacts with tears, and another has put occasional dents in the walls. And Amelia’s reaction in this sequence brings us to the nature of the film’s monster.
So, what exactly is the Babadook? There are many interpretations, the most common being a personification of Amelia’s grief over the loss of her husband. This is perfectly valid, as is the idea that the Babadook represents trauma. But allow me to suggest an idea that is rarely mentioned because it is too dark to name. The Babadook is a parent’s resentment toward their own child. It is the intrusive thoughts, the unwelcome voice in the mind that says, “if you weren’t here…” That clause can be completed in infinite ways:
“…I wouldn’t have these problems.”
“…I could do whatever I want whenever I want.”
“…I wouldn’t be tired all the time…embarrassed by his behavior…I’d still have my husband.”
“If you weren’t here, I would be free.”
During Samuel’s overload episode, she utters a phrase that cuts me to the bone every time because I know it has crossed my mind, if not my lips—“Why can’t you just be normal?!”
These are intrusive thoughts and feelings at first, unwelcome, unprompted, and unbelieved, but Amelia lets them in and allows the Babadook to take her over and lashes out at Samuel. This is not entirely new in horror. Think of Katherine Thorn (Lee Remick) in The Omen (1976) calling for someone to take Damien away as he noisily plays at the pool table. Or even more potent, Jack Torrence in The Shining (more book than film) was possessed by the evil spirit of the Overlook, chasing down his young son to kill him. But Sam can see what Amelia cannot, “I know you don’t love me, the Babadook won’t let you. But I love you, Mom. And I always will.” And that is ultimately what breaks the power of the Babadook—love.
The Babadook is not only internal but external. It is the resentment and lack of understanding that society has for people like Samuel. Early in the film, Amelia is called in to her son’s school to learn that he has created a homemade crossbow. “The boy has significant behavioral problems,” the principal says. Autism is not a behavioral disorder; it is a complex neurological divergence. In Samuel’s case, his inventions come from his sense of protectiveness for his mother and classmates and his acute ingenuity, not from a place of malice as in a behavioral issue. The principal plans to assign a full-time monitor for Samuel, which in the United States would typically be called a 1-on-1 paraeducator. As someone who works in education, I have seen the great benefit that these wonderful workers bring to my students with autism.
Unfortunately, the approach taken by the principal and the teacher in the film is not effective because they see Samuel as a problem to be fixed rather than as a person to be cared for. Amelia puts it best when she tells them that “he needs some understanding.” She follows this up by telling them, “I’ll go find a school that sees my son as a human being and not just as another problem to be gotten rid of.” Many well-known personalities in the world today are looking at the Autistic community as a problem to be fixed rather than people to be accepted. This has set the cause of autism acceptance back years, if not decades, and has re-stigmatized a large and diverse group that was just beginning to come out of the shadow of that stigma.
So, what is the solution? It may sound simplistic, but I think the neighbor, Mrs. Roach, says it best when she comes to Amelia’s door one evening just to check on her. “I just wanted you to know that I’d do anything for you and Sam. I love you both,” she tells Amelia, unaware that the young mother is currently possessed by a monstrous hatred for her child. But this is the beginning of what breaks the Babadook’s spell over Amelia. Empathy, compassion, and the search for understanding are powerful weapons in the fight against all that the Babadook represents.
Soon after Gracie’s visit, Amelia expels the spirit and all that it entails from her body, and the mama bear within her is unleashed. One thing I’ve seen to be true, fighting off the Babadook in all its forms creates in parents of disabled children an unparalleled fierceness that refuses to be ignored. Amelia’s defiant primal scream, “If you touch my son again, I’ll fucking kill you!” is world-shaking. I do not mention this as a threat of violence in any sense, but the parents of autistic children that I know have more fight in them than most people can imagine. They will persistently and tirelessly stand up for their kids to give them the best opportunities available, no matter the cost to themselves.
The story of a mother raising a disabled child alone and learning to face the fight has been told again recently in a very different form in the film If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (2025). Just as occurred with Samuel ten years ago, many viewers went after the disabled child again, naming her the villain of the film. It has been a case of the memes once again. So, it is once again clear, The Babadook does not die.
But as the film so eloquently demonstrates, it can be kept at bay. The grief, the trauma, the resentment, the guilt will always be there. Sometimes it is in a weakened state, sometimes it fights hard to overtake. It throbs like a bruise festering under the skin. But it need not overwhelm. It need not consume. In the end, Amelia sees Samuel for who he is: a deeply caring and protective soul, a lover of magic and whimsy, a free spirit who dances to the music his mind creates. Like Amelia, moments like those at the end of the film make my heart soar. When my children are accepted for who they are and given freedom to escape from the boxes imposed by cultural norms, they blossom and offer the world expressions that no one else can.
I think it all comes down to one simple idea in this Autism Acceptance month: we would all be better off with a lot fewer Claires and Rubys in the world and a lot more Gracies. What a perfect name for a person that shines that kind of light into a dark world—Grace. May we all learn to extend the dignity, compassion, and acceptance that she does.
