The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the dimension of monstrosity, ever latent in the individual and collective subconscious, transforms itself into a creature who incarnates the irrationality within childhood. To demonstrate this, the film directed by Jennifer Kent, The Babadook (2014), will be analyzed from the perspective of the intertextual dialogue that it establishes with the folklore tradition and the discursive strategies that denote the fantastic genre, such as metafiction and the nightmare chronotope.