"The Babadook", directed by Jennifer Kent

Movie, 2014

A powerful atmospheric horror about a bogeyman, taking many of the genre's tropes (creepy house with a cellar, strange magical texts and a family battling good versus evil) and fits them in an Australian suburban set up, very much focusing on young mothers. This fresh approach to older, conservative forms reaps huge dividends, with the mother/son relationship swinging wildly and the absence of a male dominant figure striking. The plot swerves a little too wildly here and there, but this is a really bold, interesting and gripping horror.

Image: Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42530460

"The Life and Loves of a She-Devil", by Fay Weldon

Novel, 1983

Uncompromising, unsubtle parable looking at female stereotypes, suppression and power. All very enjoyable too, with the grotesque and phantasmagoric elements just keeping the narrative on a light, readable trajectory; the book doesn't so much preach as elegantly scream and gets its point over so forcibly and with charm and simplicity, it's hard not to see the world through an increasingly twisted anti-heroine's eyes and knives being twisted once backs have been stabbed. A cracking read.