PLOT: A teen uncovers a satanic plot being spearheaded by his super-hot babysitter.
I was avoiding horror comedies for the most part this year. I wanted to stick with movies that were more or less strict horror films, but after so many of them, sometimes you need to break it up with something a little more lighthearted. Coupled with the fact that The Babysitter just dropped on Netflix, this was an easy pick.
The Babysitter is, I don’t want to say a throwback, because that conjures up ideas of movies steeped in nostalgia. More accurately, it’s a sort of send up of movies where the kid finds out that a neighbor or someone close to them isn’t quite what they seem, sort of like Fright Night with a hot babysitter.
Cole is a twelve-year old that finds himself on the bottom of the food chain. He’s bullied everywhere he goes, he’s afraid of just about everything, and his parents still think he needs a babysitter. While the first two things make his life a living hell, he doesn’t quite mind the third one, as his babysitter happens to be his closest friend and confidant… It also doesn’t hurt that she’s super cool and looks like Margot Robbie’s slightly younger sister. In Bee (played by Samara Weaving), Cole is able to talk about movies and hypothetical sci-fi team-ups while receiving advice from a popular older woman. This relationship is one of the strongest things in this film and it’s important to the second and third acts when it inevitably goes to shit.
This movie is a blast. The cast all seem to be having fun and you buy into each and every character, even Disney star Bella Thorne as the stereotypical bimbo cheerleader. I would’ve liked to see the second and third acts more dominated by Bee doing the hunting of Cole, as most of that is done by Robbie Amell as Max, but he has an interesting dynamic with Cole, too, as he stops his pursuit of Cole in order to get him to stand up to a bully hell-bent on egging Cole’s house on a regular basis. It’s a fun flick and a nice palette cleanser.
This is definitely a gory film, almost to a cartoonish level Andrew Bachelor’s character John gets the brunt of a lot of the splatter and there are some pretty gruesome death scenes, including one guy getting two knifes in the head and someone breaking their neck while hanging.
Gore Rating: 4 out of 5
It doesn’t take itself seriously enough to promise any real scares. We’re not even sure if there’s anything supernatural that could have occurred if the satanic plot was fulfilled.
Scare Rating: 0 out of 5
No sex, but you get a male gazing scene of the babysitter in a bikini and you get an extended makeout session between Samara Weaving and Bella Thorne, so you could do worse than this for a movie without any actual nudity. For the ladies, Robbie Amell spends most of the time without a shirt on, so that’s something too, I guess.
Sex/Nudity Rating: 1 out of 5
OVERALL
The Babysitter is a fun time; it’s hyper-aware of itself and never takes itself too seriously, but it’s an enjoyable 90 minutes. The cast is totally game, the story is entertaining, and McG’s direction is actually quite competent. If you’re in the thick of a horror marathon and you’re looking for some lighter fare, this is a great option.
The Main Damie 