This discussion of Jennifer Kent’s 2014 film The Babadook focuses on how it assimilates and adapts genre elements from New Hollywood era suburban horror, using its typically feminised suburban domestic space as the basis of an alternative Australian gothic, distinct from those films that equate Australianness with masculinity. Although Kent herself emphasises the deliberate placelessness of her film, this discussion focuses on how its depiction of a haunted terrace, set in the inner suburbs of Adelaide and inspired by nineteenth-century architecture of Sydney, combines its distinctly Australian setting with elements of the American New Hollywood horror. Of particular interest is how this haunted house tale departs from the aspirational narratives of American suburban horror, with their tendency to idealise the domestic realm under attack, appearing instead to draw inspiration from the Australian social realist film whose focus on working-class urban and inner suburban spaces emphasises the influence of social environment on character.