One summer afternoon you find yourself cleaning out the dusty old attic of the new home you've
moved into.
It's a bit out in the countryside and out of the way, but it came cheap- the owners
seemed very willing to sell it.
So willing in fact that they seem to have left at least half of their possessions up
here in the attic, and as you're sorting through things to trash, things to sell, and things
to keep, you come across a strange book.
It has a simple red cover with just a title, no author: Mister Babadook.
As you open the book up you're surprised to discover that it looks like a children's pop-up
book, except there's something oddly disturbing about it.
For one it features a creepy figure dressed in a long black coat and top hat with what
looks like long claws for hands, and for the other it comes with the following piece of
disturbing poetry: If it's in a word, or it's in a look, you can't get rid of the Babadook.
You read the simple poem aloud, and suddenly you think you hear a shuffling of feet in
the darkness of the attic.
Looking up you're startled to see the figure from the book- it's real!
As it rears up to its full height and displays its clawed hands you suddenly understand why
the owners decided to sell this house so cheap.
Hello and welcome to another episode of You Versus- today we're putting you up against
the legendary demon of grief, the Babadook.
No one is sure about the origins of the Babadook, save to say that it's been around at least
since the late Victorian era given its predisposition for the long coats and high top hats so popular
at the time.
The Babadook could of course be much older than that, given that it seems to be mystically
linked to a pop-up book that bears its full name.
The first pop-up books were made in the late 13thcentury, and it is possible that the Babadook
has been around as long as they have.
However as a Demon, the Babadook is likely a far more ancient being, haunting humanity
since its inception.
Its connection to the pop-up book in question may just be its chosen avenue of haunting
its victims, or perhaps part of some mystical banishment the demon suffered at some point
in its past.
Whatever its origins, you're going to have to know what you're up against if you're in
the Babadook's crosshairs.
As usual this will be a fight to the death, or at least a fight to banish the Babadook
since it's likely that as a demon, it cannot die.
So, what are you potentially facing?
First and foremost the Babadook is in fact a demon, which places it in a category aside
from spirits, monsters, ghouls, or other things that go bump in the night.
As a demon this means that the Babadook is more intelligent than a spirit or ghoul, and
thus far more crafty and manipulative.
It understands humanity in a way that other supernatural creatures can't, as it draws
both from its immortal lifespan of experiences and higher intelligence, and thus knows what
makes us tick, and how to exploit all of our fears.
Fear is important, because as a demon the Babadook is much like a spirit, strengthened
by fear, and the more scared its victims become the more powerful that the Babadook becomes.
The Babadook is however specifically a demon of grief, and prefers to target people who
have been made vulnerable by deep sadness, depression, and loss in their lives.
Its hauntings are geared to further deepen those feelings of hopelessness, pain, and
loss, until finally pushing its victims into either letting it possess them or doing great
acts of violence.
The Babadook has an arsenal of powers at its disposals that will prove difficult to counter.
First and foremost it has the ability to teleport at will, though it does show a preference
to teleport to darkened, shadowy areas as opposed to brightly lit spaces.
This may mean that the Babadook is tied to the shadows of the world, and can move through
them freely, but has difficulty using its powers to escape in bright light.
This isn't its only trick though, as the Babadook also displays a formidable talent for telekinesis,
able to move objects as large as a couch with its mind.
It can also shapeshift into people the victim is familiar with, or into mundane objects,
though is given away upon close inspection, so it has an imperfect talent for mimicry.
Lastly, it is a keen manipulator, using its ability to inflict terror on its victims to
gradually break down their mental defenses until they do things that the Babadook wants-
which is typically to commit violence.
So, you're up against the dreaded Babadook- how are you going to defeat this demon of
grief?
First you're going to want to defeat its ability to randomly teleport at will through the shadows.
This will be key in order to keep the Babadook from getting the drop on you, and so that
you can make sure to land a killing blow when the time comes.
In order to counter the Babadook's ability to randomly teleport away from you you're
going to want to get your hands on a piece of hardware like the Buysight LED searchlight,
which can put out as much as 6000 lumens up to a range of 800 meters.
That's half as bright as the sun reflecting off white snow, and prolonged exposure directly
to the eyes can lead to permanent vision problems.
With a miniature sun in your hands, you'll be able to blast away even the deepest darkest
shadows, and with the ability to flood, you'll scatter any shadows directly in front of you
leaving no room for the Babadook to hide.
Of course that still leaves all the dark areas behind you that it could try to flee to, so
you're going to need something that can light up really large areas like the rising of a
second sun- and nothing can light up large swathes of ground quite like an Arrimax.
The tool of choice by professional filmmakers who need to work outdoors in the middle of
the night, the Arrimax is a whopping 18,000 watt light that can be hoisted up into the
air on a crane or secured to a sturdy tree.
With this monster light blasting your surroundings, the Babadook will have absolutely nowhere
to hide.
So you've taken care of its ability to teleport, leaving the Babadook with nowhere to hide.
You'll have to watch out for its ability to use telekinesis to move objects around, which
it will no doubt try to use as a weapon against you, but as long as you're keeping a sharp
eye on your environment and keeping your head on a swivel, you should be fine.
What you should be most concerned about is its ability to manipulate your fears- like
many evil creatures that go bump in the night, the Babadook is strengthened by fear, so you're
going to have to keep a firm grip on what scares you.
Unlike other demons or similar creatures that feed on fear though, the Babadook specifically
feeds off grief as well, and fear that stems from that grief- so your next weapon is going
to be to arm yourself with some peace of mind.
If you're holding on to any particular pain or loss, let it go.
Try to be grateful for the things that you already have in your life, and try to take
joy in the accomplishments you achieve- such as the imminent Babadook kill you're about
to score because you're a zen master, and this shifty demon can't find any weak spots
in your psyche to exploit.
You've stripped the Babadook of its ability to teleport away, you've remembered the five
Ds of Dodgeball and Dodged, ducked, dipped, dove, and... dodged.... everything it's tried
to hurl at you with telekinesis, and when it tried to manipulate your grief and fear,
you shut the Babadook down with a Dali Lama-like level of self-mastery.
Now it's time to go for the kill and end this death match once and for all, sending this
demon of grief back to the fiery hell that spawned it.
As you probably know by now from watching our other episodes, we here at The Infographics
Show are fans of problem solving through superior firepower, and in this case we have one and
only one tool to recommend, a surefire way to blast this hellspawn out of this world
and back into its own... the Super Soaker Scatterblast Blaster.
That's right, a squirt gun- only not any regular type of squirt gun, a 22 ounce beast that
can deliver shot-gun like blasts of water up to 34 feet (10 meters) away!
Except you're not going to be blasting the Babadook with any regular type of water, you're
going to be using holy water blessed by a priest.
As a demon, the Babadook is bound to the rules of our prime material plane if it chooses
to manifest physically.
That means that if the Babadook took solid form in order to directly manipulate our world,
then its body would be subject to the same rules as our own bodies or anything else physical-
in which case we'd be recommending firepower on a level much higher than just a squirt
gun.
However, because the Babadook doesn't manifest physically, it can't be harmed physically-
that's why it needs to haunt victims in order to eventually wear them down and commit the
violence it can't commit itself.
So to excommunicate this demon out of our world and back to its own- at least temporarily-
you're going to have to hit it with the only thing all demons can't stand, corporal or
non-corporal: holy water.
Water blessed by true faith is the divine is anathema to evil, and has the power to
not just hurt evil, but to dispel it all together.
With a tank full of blessed water, your super soaker scatterblaster is a demon-blasting
weapon that Michael the Archangel would be envious of.
That is of course if the water you're using has been blessed by a priest with true faith-
something very, very rare in our world today.
Otherwise, well, you're really only going to be making a very angry demon soaking wet,
moments before it rips your soul from your body and inhabits you forever.
How would you defeat the Babadook?
Also, if you like this series, check out our other videos where we pit you against something
horrible!
Go on, click the thumbnail.
I’ll wait!