If you’re hungry for those old school and bloody slashers of the eighties, The Babysitter will satisfy all your murderous desires. Today’s horror and comedy movies often get bogged down in commercial pandering, trying to please everyone. Studios looking for movies with a PG-13 rating that can be marketed to a wide audience have too much influence. And after years of wanting a movie with mainstream vibes that will be just the right amount campy and self-aware, we finally got one. It’s delightfully blood-squirting gory, sexy and pacy, with a lot of humor. Think Zombieland, Tucker and Dale vs Evil, The Cabin in the Woods and Shaun of the Dead. Also, the visuals are sleek and special effects impressive and delectable.
The Babysitter doesn’t offer anything new, it just mixes all the right ingredients in the right way making an entertaining popcorn movie. It’s perfectly balanced and manages to pull you into its world avoiding the usual suspension-of-belief problems with sharp and witty dialogue. There are some really suspenseful scenes, something you wouldn’t necessarily expect from this type of movie. Set in one location and taking place during one hell of a night, it also hits a couple of tags I like.
Ahhh, to be young again. Cole is a young boy, looking forward to his teenage years. He’s hoping they will help with the problems he’s having now. He lives in a nice suburban neighborhood with his cool and a bit parents but the kid next door is bullying him constantly. Luckily, his babysitter Bee is there to help him with that and pretty much everything else. However, he will have to muster all his strength and skills one night when his parents leave town and he finds himself fighting for life.
I have to say that I fell in love with our babysitter Samara Weaving as soon as I saw her. She plays Bee spot-on with basically the entire movie hanging on her and her dynamic with Cole. Hot damn, I just imagine myself watching this movie in my teens and getting the hots for Samara, probably for life.
Quite a dangerous thing, to fall for Elronds/Megatrons/Agent Smiths niece. And if you want to see more of her (sexual objectification hint), I recommend you check out Last Moment of Clarity, a decent thriller released just a couple of months ago. Which reminds me that this is a coming of age story with all the usual subjects like bullying, first crushes, parents leaving you alone…
Cheesy, cliched and full of familiar tropes, The Babysitter is a movie you watch to have some fun. Don’t try too much to make sense of the story and look for plot holes. Mostly because there are quite of few, but also not to spoil your viewing pleasure. You will be served a pretty steady dose of memberberries if you grew up during the eighties and nineties. From Alien, E.T. to stereotypical characters and setting, everything is aiming for maximum impact.
There’s also a sequel titled The Babysitter: Killer Queen, however, it’s pretty bad. I barely made it through the first fifteen minutes of this cringefest. I think I hit back on the remote when I heard someone say “slide into her dms”. While we’re on the subject of retro eighties horror movies, I have to recommend you a couple. Starting with a much slower but more atmospheric and creepy horror The House Of The Devil. And continuing with a much more similar The Final Girls.
Director: McG
Writer: Brian Duffield
Cast: Judah Lewis, Samara Weaving, Robbie Amell, Hana Mae Lee, Bella Thorne, Emily Alyn Lind, Andrew Bachelor, Doug Haley
Fun Facts: The makeout scene between Bee and Allison was not in the original script.
Rating:
IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4225622/
