I mentioned that I have now acquired Netflix a few weeks ago and earlier I decided to check out the films and immediately “The Babysitter” caught my eye. It was described as a horror/comedy good some blood and a laugh hopefully I was up for that.
The film was classed a Netflix Original so I am not sure if it had a cinema run or just release to Netflix. A great Horror Comedy is a rare thing and “The Babysitter” can join that short list with pride, as it's the most fun I’d had watching a film in this genre all year and maybe last year to.
The movie starts with Cole (Judah Lewis), a twelve- year-old boy who is afraid of everything, constantly bullied, and completely oblivious to the fact that the girl down the street Melanie (Emily Alyn Lind) has a crush on him. Cole has a crush of his own, on his babysitter Bee (Samara Weaving). Why should he care about being too old to still need a babysitter when his parents want some time out of the house, when his sitter's this hot and this cool?
Then things take a really dark turn when Melanie urges Cole a sneaks out of bed and spy on Bee who she tells is probably having sex with her boyfriend. Bee tries to drug Cole to keep him out of the way but he works it out and pours the drink away. On sneaking to the top of the stairs, he catches her playing a game of Truth or Dare and Bee kisses to the jock Max (Robbie Amell), Goth Sonya (Hana Mae Lee), and class clown John (Andrew Bachelor), and a long, passionate one to cheerleader Allison (Bella Thorne). She then makes out with Allison’s dorky boyfriend Samuel (Doug Haley) who looks well out of place among this group and we soon discovers why . . . has she knifes him in the head and collects his blood.
Turns out Bee has promised her friends she can make all of their dreams come true if they participate in a satanic ritual she knows. The ritual also involves taking a few harmless drops of blood from Cole, but when they find out Coles awake and works out he as seen everything, they won't settle for that.
The stock characters that would have been helplessly butchered in 80's horror movies are the monsters here, but they're also still victims. As Cole faces his fears and makes them chase him around his house, they each end up meeting a gory demise one by one. Never mind the times where Cole gets outside of the house and then runs right back in, just for the sake of continuing their deadly game of tag for the sake of there being a movie.
Robbie Amell is a surprising standout. Very amiable for being both a dumb jock and a psycho killer, Max takes the occasional break from the chase to try to play big brother to Cole, mentoring him on how to stand up for himself before resuming trying to kill him. But it's really Judah Lewis and Samara Weaving's show. With all the time invested into getting to know them at the beginning of the movie, they manage to make you believe, or at least want to believe, that there's still genuine affection between the babysitter and her charge, even after she's set her friends on hunting him down. As a result, the inevitable confrontation between them is actually quite poignant and touching.
There's plenty of comically over-the-top gore, but moments meant to be suspenseful are more eye-rolling that nail-biting, so if you're looking for something to make you scream and jump out of your chair, this may be the wrong movie for you. But if you're looking for a sly and silly send-up of films about nubile teens being massacred and one with plenty of heart beneath the gruesome exterior, you may find yourself falling in love.
My Rating
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