He was just an irritating brat and I for one didn't give two fucks about him because of it. There was nothing charming or lovable about him, and you need him to be something more than an annoying head case if you to want to earn my concern for him.

Conversely, mom turned in a hell of a performance and she's the sole reason this worked. The Babadook itself was whatever to me. It wasn't particularly inventive to me and just played like a generic monster to be honest, since there was nothing to ground him into anything plausible or relatable on any level. I did enjoy the way he tied so closely to mom and her emotional state, but that wasn't enough to make him/her/it all that interesting as a character.

I think the boy was the key to pulling this off and that was such a failure it brought the whole thing down significantly.