This week, the Dames are celebrating their 300th episode with Jennifer Kent’s beautiful grief allegory, The Babadook.

Released in 2014, The Babadook tells the story of Amelia (Essie Davis), a widowed mother raising her 6-year-old son Sam (Noah Wiseman) on her own. As Sam’s birthday approaches, so does the anniversary of her husband’s tragic death. The grief and depression she has tried so hard to keep at bay finally begins to take hold in the form of a shadowy monster, the Babadook.

Produced for $2 million by the Australian director, IFC Films bought The Babadook at Sundance. IFC scheduled a limited release and the film grossed over $10 million worldwide. It found an even bigger audience once it hit streaming that winter. The character of the Babadook accidentally became a pop culture — and specifically an LGBTQ+ — icon thanks to Netflix.

To date, Kent has directed two feature films. The Babadook was her first, followed by The Nightingale in 2018. Her first short film, Monster, was the basis for what would become her feature debut. Kent also directed “The Murmuring,” an episode in Guillermo del Toro’s horror anthology Cabinet of Curiosities for Netflix.

The film earned dozens of awards and nominations from critics groups, the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, and the British Independent Film Awards. For the 10th anniversary earlier this year, IFC Films re-released it briefly in theaters.

You can stream The Babadook on AMC+, Shudder, Criterion Channel, Netflix, and more.