Jennifer Kent Worried ‘The Babadook’ Was ‘Crap’ After Its Sundance Premiere

"I remember completely shutting down and thinking, 'Oh, I’ve made a big turkey.'"

Jennifer Kent got quite a scare when “The Babadook” premiered at Sundance in 2014.

The writer/director made her feature debut with the horror film, which IndieWire recently ranked as the ninth best horror movie of the 21st century. However, first reactions to the feature were mixed at first, at least according to Kent.

The filmmaker told Variety as part of the film’s 10-year anniversary that the Sundance debut led her to worry that she “made a big turkey” of a movie after one audience member deemed it “crap.”

“It [was] a hyper-aware moment for me, ‘Why is that woman coughing? Why is there so much silence?,'” Kent recalled of sitting in the theater during the film’s first screening. “Like, what do I want them to talk through the film? Then when the film ended, the woman in front of me said, ‘Well, that was crap.’ I remember completely shutting down and thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve made a big turkey.’ Because you hear a comment like that, and I thought, ‘That’s unanimous.'”

Kent continued, “But of course, that’s actually filmmaking. You’ll always get that kind of comment here and there. Then the buzz started to happen and it was a wonderful experience.”

“The Babadook” opened in theaters in November 2014, and grossed more than $7 million on a $2 million budget.

“I’m incredibly fortunate that my first film was remembered. It’s being shown on 500 screens 10 years on, whereas when it started, it was on two,” Kent said, citing the theatrical re-release of the film, courtesy of IFC Films and Iconic Events. “I feel enormously grateful to that film. I don’t tend to look back once I’ve finished a film. It’s done. I put everything I have into it and I want to move forward. So I haven’t thought that much about it, but I’m really grateful. I also think it’s a bit of a lottery with films. Someone can make a brilliant first film, and for whatever reason, it just doesn’t hit right at the time and doesn’t get that coverage. So I was very fortunate.”

“The Babadook” centers on widow Amelia (Essie Davis) who struggles to parent her 6 year-old son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) due to his disturbing outbursts. Yet when Samuel tells his mother that he’s been dreaming of a murderous monster, it turns out he might be trying to save them both.

Kent followed “The Babadook” with the controversial rape revenge thriller “The Nightingale,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2018 and competed for the Golden Lion.