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“You can’t get rid of the Babadook.”

It’s been 10 years since director Jennifer Kent unleashed The Babadook (dook-dook-dook) in theaters. To celebrate the decennial IFC Films is bringing back the psychological haunter to theaters on September 19 featuring an exclusive Q&A with Kent.

This might be the film that spawned the phrase “elevated horror,” a moniker that has since come to describe films produced and released by A24.

The Babadook has come to symbolize mental illness due to trauma. Perhaps its most disturbing aspect is how the single mother in the film, Amelia (Essie Davis), emotionally and physically abuses her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) seemingly under the influence of the titular monster.

Kent got the idea for the story having been inspired by a real person.

“I have a friend who’s a single mother, whose son was traumatized by this monster figure that he thought he saw everywhere in the house. So I thought, ‘What if this thing was real, on some level?’ So I made Monster [a 2005 short film] about that idea. But I couldn’t leave it alone. I kept coming back to it. And that led to The Babadook.”

The independent film struggled a bit at the box office upon its initial release, but since then it has become a cult favorite. Even though it has become such a classic, Kent has no desire to make a follow-up, even going so far as to buy up all the rights for herself.

“I will never allow any sequel to be made, because it’s not that kind of film. I don’t care how much I’m offered, it’s just not going to happen.”

Speaking at a special screening at the Sundance Film Festival this year Kent said The Babadook was transformative.

“I definitely have some distance on Babadook now, after ten years. The film feels like an old friend, one that changed my life in many ways … Sundance was such a huge part of that change. I look forward to ‘coming home’ to the place where it all began, and to the festival that has given me and ‘Mister B’ so much.”

The Babadook, in theaters on Sept. 19; Tickets on sale Wednesday, August 14th.