THE BABADOOK **** (15, 94 mins) Starring Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall, Barbara West, Benjamin Winspear, Hayley McElhinney, Tim Purcell

CHILDREN’S literature is littered with murder, suffering and diabolical villains.

Age-old fairytales feature a wolf devouring a helpless grandmother, ugly sisters hacking off toes and heels to squeeze their feet into a glass slipper, a mermaid enduring the pain of walking on knives and a witch fattening up siblings to roast in her oven.

The titular bogeyman of Australian writer-director Jennifer Kent’s debut feature is a menacing figure in a top hat and black cloak, who stalks the pages of a children’s pop-up book and slowly manifests in the real world.

A nerve-frayed mother is driven to the brink of infanticide by this hideously-gnarled spectre while her hyperactive son faces the insidious threat with a cleverly handmade dart gun and portable catapult.

It’s an impressive debut from Kent, drawing emotional power from the strong performances of Davis and Wiseman, who gel perfectly.

The writer-director conjures some genuinely unsettling scenes of domestic disturbance and sensibly keeps the clawed antagonist off screen for the best part of an hour, hinting at unspeakable horrors that lurk in shadowy corners and beneath beds.

Once The Babadook slinks into the light and announces it presence with a death rattle growl, the film loses its power to shock and any feelings of skin-crawling dread are reduced to an itch.

Hardcore horror fans will find it a tad lightweight but for scaredy cats like me, Kent’s descent into the darkness is definitely worth a scratch.