To create a full picture of each film it is essential to understand the intertextual influences in The Babadook, The Invitation, and Crimson Peak. Although they are all horror films, each movie falls into a slightly different horror sub-genre, and contain various references to prior aesthetic choices, settings, plot lines, actors, characters, and themes. The Babadook’s central obstacle is the Babadook, a character who for all intents and purposes, serves the role of a monster. Therefore, The Babadook is classified as a monster movie, much like films about vampires, werewolves, and aliens. The Invitation is a slow burn that hinges on details in a way similar to both home invasion films and murder mystery ensembles. These facets help the film present as a psychological thriller with a slasher-like flourish. As a horror romance, Crimson Peak is just as much a love story as is it is terrifying. It borrows not only from horror narratives, but from romance tropes and narratives as well. Each film can and does exist as a gothic horror haunted house film, but this section acknowledges the various subgenres and inspirations presented in the movies. 

The Babadook pulls visual inspiration from black and white silent films, and the monster is an example of this. Mister Babadook is a tall figure, dressed all in black with long spindly fingers. His skin is pale white, and his features are exaggerated and overdrawn. He has black circles around his eyes and his wide mouth is an inky grin. Mister Babadook lurks in the darkness but moves in fast, choppy, segments. He clicks and rustles as he crawls across the ceiling and floors as if he were an insect. In many ways, the Babadook is unhuman, but his familiar shape mimics what we should recognize as a person. Kent cites Lon Chaney’s character, “The Man in the Beaver Hat'' from the lost film London After Midnight, as an inspiration for the creature’s design (Glasby 150; Kent). In an interview with Ken Hanke, she describes how Chaney’s distorted face appears “human, but almost not.” In the movie Kent incorporates a montage of silent films, including another Chaney film, The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and Segundo de Chomón’s The House of Ghosts (La Maison ensorcelée) (1908). She inserts the Babadook into the films’ frames, and the character looks as if he belongs there. His overdrawn face, dark shadows, and sharp stature resemble the characteristics of classic silent horror figures such as Nosferatu, Mr. Hyde, and The Phantom of the Opera. The set design has a theatrical style that makes scenes feel like a stage play, or a classic silent film. While the objects and furniture look real, the walls of the house are painted to feel eerie and artificial. Mister Babadook’s campy appearance makes him appear almost silly, but the sinister way he creeps through the movie without being fully seen creates suspense in the narrative and characterizes the monster as something to fear. 

The Babadook also borrows stylistically from the early silent films that built the horror genre. Many gothic horror tropes, originally established by gothic novels, have been around for centuries. For example, the 1908 horror short, The House of Ghosts, which is referenced in The Babadook, depicts an unsettling home terrorized by an even more unsettling supernatural creature. Kent draws a clear intertextual relationship to classic gothic iconography and narrative by directly using clips from earlier films. Beyond this, she pays homage to these films through her use of angler framing, cool toned gritty textures, and uncanny characters. These factors give The Babadook a classic horror feeling for a modern audience. 

Like The Babadook, Kusama’s The Invitation meshes several recurring horror narratives to create a new entry in the genre. The Invitation has elements of slasher, home invasion, cult, and murder mystery films. Like a slasher or murder mystery, a group of individuals are invited to a singular location to be killed off one by one, and while most of the murder in The Invitation takes place concurrently, each character is singularly killed as others attempt to escape. The Invitation borrows mostly from a murder mystery in setting; Eden’s mid-century modern home is large and lavish. She invites the ensemble of characters under false pretenses, and through subtle hints the truth is revealed. Kusama pays close attention to detail in creating the house, presenting it as polished and expensive. 

Home invasion films, popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, such as Funny Games (1997/2007), Panic Room (2002), and The Strangers (2008) have similar realist aesthetics as The Invitation and demand emphasis on the house. The houses resemble locations audience members would either live, or feel comfortable living in. They appear clean, traditional, and ordinary. The films turn the character’s home, a space that is familiar and inviting, into the confines of their own suffering. The Invitation traps Will in the house where he once raised his family, and ultimately lost his son. For him, the place was already haunted, but for others, it was an impressive home full of fine things. Much like an invasion film, Will’s familiarity with the home becomes his advantage as he attempts to escape his death.  

More overt in many ways than The Babadook and The Invitation, Crimson Peak is rich with gothic references. Crimson Peak is a period piece directly inspired by early gothic novels, which focused on the dichotomy of beauty and horror. The story pulls from gothic narratives by juxtaposing Edith and Thomas’ love with a nightmarish mystery. Following a classic gothic horror trope, Edith is a young, virginal woman who gets caught up in a dangerous romance with a charismatic stranger. It also takes place in a traditional gothic setting, an isolated British manor decorated with decaying Victorian furniture that alludes to the home’s former beauty. Furthermore, Del Toro’s film has a haunting yet beautiful tone which contrasts horror and romance by constructing ominous people and bewitching locations. Both Thomas and Lucille are attractive, charming, and well-dressed, but something dark lies beneath the surface. The Sharpes are an example of a wealthy and elite family trapped by their dark secrets, another trope seen often in gothic novels. Audiences are drawn to them while knowing they are no good, provoking feelings of both love and fear: themes I’ve explained are also popular in gothic narratives. Gothic romance built the foundation of the horror genre and Crimson Peak proves that even in 2015 it remains captivating and terrifying. Del Toro also incorporates gothic aesthetics from golden age horror films like Dracula (1931), The Fall of the House of Usher (1960), and The Haunting (1963) through implementing long dark hallways, 18th century furniture, flowing nightgowns, and candelabras. The beauty of this iconography is not lost on the viewer and resembles some of the first haunted house films.