This Iconic Horror Movie Prop Is 100% Real but Good Luck Finding a Copy

One of the most fun extracurricular activities of being a horror fan is finding the real-life equivalents of objects and places from your favorite films. From standing face to face with the wide-eyed, creepy Annabelle doll locked away in the Warrens’ home museum to buying Scream masks and cloaks whenever Halloween rolls around, horror memorabilia comes in all terrifying shapes and sizes. One such collector’s item comes from the critically acclaimed Australian horror movie, The Babadook. No, you can’t get your own all-consuming spirit to terrorize you and your family from your house’s basement. However, director Jennifer Kent collaborated with Insight Editions to create the pop-up book that summons the creature in the film. Filled with familiar frightening imagery, and a couple of new pages, the horror pop-up book was sold for a limited amount of time. This is why, currently, it is near-impossible to get a hold of one of the original books.

What Is The Horror Pop-Up Book in ‘The Babadook?’

The iconic pop-up book plays a key role in The Babadook‘s narrative, as it is the supernatural object that kicks off the grueling chain of events in the film. Amelia (Essie Davis) and her son, Sam (Noah Wiseman), share a tense relationship after the death of Amelia’s husband. With Sam’s aggravated urge to defend them from monsters with makeshift weapons and his behavior declining in school, Amelia struggles to balance out her grief with her son’s idiosyncrasies. After one particularly exhausting day, Sam picks out a red-bound book from the shelf as a bedtime story, with two black words inscribed on the cover: Mister Babadook.

Charcoal-like drawings are sprawled over each page with interactive aspects that give the Babadook jerky, eerie movements. With wide eyes, a sickly grin, a sharp geometric body, and a top hat, these scribbled pictures are the most we see of the terrifying creature as it’s psychical form is shown only sparingly throughout the film. Like the Babadook, the book becomes impossible to get rid of, as Amelia ardently tries to throw it out or burn it. Despite her efforts, it clings to this small, vulnerable family, becoming a memorable piece of iconography from the movie.

How Was the Real ‘The Babadook’ Pop-Up Book Made?

In 2015, Kent collaborated with Insight Editions, namely paper engineer Simon Arizpe and illustrator Alexander Juhasz, to create a real version of the horror pop-up. Well, a spirit-free licensed product; the real book would probably be too dangerous to sell. Arizpe talks about the manufacturing process with PaperSpecs and how they ensured all the specifications, including the color, size, and binding, were identical to the prop in The Babadook. However, some creative licensing was required to fill out the gaps in the book, as only a few pages were shown in the film.

The Real ‘The Babadook’ Pop-Up Book Is Impossible to Buy

Unlike the book in The Babadook, which was impossible to get rid of and kept re-appearing, the real collector’s edition is much harder to get your hands on. 6,200 copies of the collector’s item were sold altogether during a 50-day campaign in 2015, with the first 5,000 being signed by Kent. With limited numbers and a timeframe for selling, the book quickly became a rare item. Causeway Films had also announced a second edition being printed and sold if they received 2,500 orders by September 1, 2019, but this ultimately fell through, leaving only 6,200 copies of the book in existence.

While replicas of the horror pop-up novel are being sold online, the only way to get your hands on a genuine article is through re-sellers. These prices are, of course, being driven up much higher than the original $60 to $100 they were being sold at. While it is disappointing that they are not being sold anymore, maybe it’s a blessing disguised as a curse. After all, 6,200 copies isn’t a whole lot to truly test whether the books won’t land you in the same position as Amelia and Sam…

The Babadook is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.

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The Babadook

Release Date

November 28, 2014

Director

Jennifer Kent

Cast

Essie Davis , Noah Wiseman , Hayley McElhinney , Daniel Henshall , Barbara West , Ben Winspear , Cathy Adamek , Craig Behenna , Hachi , Tim Purcell , Chloe Hurn , Jacquy Phillips , Bridget Walters , Adam Morgan , Pippa Wanganeen , Peta Shannon , Michelle Nightingale , Tony Mack , Carmel Johnson , Michael Gilmour , Craig McArdle , Terence Crawford , Tiffany Lyndall-Knight , Lucy Hong , Sophie Riggs , John Maurice , Stephen Sheehan , Alicia Zorkovic , Lotte Crawford , Chris Roberts , Annie Batten

Runtime

94 Minutes

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