“If it’s in a word, or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook.”

That chilling warning is delivered in a pop-up book that might not make the best bedtime reading for children. The mysterious red volume and its creepy protagonist factor heavily into the Australian horror film “The Babadook,” the debut feature of the writer-director Jennifer Kent.

The film, which opens Nov. 28, follows a mother (Essie Davis) struggling to raise her young son (Noah Wiseman) after the death of her husband. As difficulties mount and the boy’s anxieties increase, a book appears on the family’s shelf. With monochrome imagery and a poetic rhyme scheme, it tells of a dark, top-hat-wearing creature who makes rumbling sounds and knocks three times to announce his presence. As the book continues, its visuals get more intense and the pop-ups more frightening. More than simply a scary tale, the book is a metaphor for the demons that lurk in the mother’s psyche and that she must confront.