The Babysitter (2017)

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

GENRE: COMEDIC, CULT
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX)

There have been a few comedic horror movies about satanic cults over the past few years, and The Babysitter is... one of them. I mean, it's fine, and technically came before the others (Satanic Panic and We Summon The Darkness are the ones coming to mind, there might be others), but I don't know if there's enough material there to keep mining. Guess I'll know if/when I watch the sequel to this one, which just hit Netflix and served as a reminder that I never saw this one. And to be fair, I never planned to, but two things got me to change my mind (well, three if you count the fact that HMAD is back for a bit and thus I can't be as choosy as I've been over the past 6-7 years).

The first thing was a recommendation from one of my longtime readers (hi Cat!), which is always an easy way to get me to watch something since I aim to please. The second is that (thanks to the sequel's existence and its accompanying press) I realized I had the cast mixed up - I thought Bella Thorne was playing the title character, and this added to my indifference since I find her pretty annoying. But no! Samara Weaving plays the sitter, and she is great! (Thorne, as anyone who saw it already knows, plays one of her pals, and to be fair she's actually pretty funny as a vapid cheerleader who worries no one will want to motorboat her after she is shot in the boob) So I dove in, still not expecting much (I correctly remembered it was directed by McG) but at least more hopeful than I was at any point in time before.

And it's fine! It's unfortunately one of those movies where going in totally blind is a help, as there is nothing to indicate that it's a horror movie until something horror-y happens 30 minutes (more?) into the runtime, so watching it with knowledge of who is still around for the sequel is even less helpful, so if you haven't seen it yet and have remained even more in the dark than I was, I'd say go watch it now before reading any further. Then you can come back and tell me it's better than I had you thinking, and I can ask "but do you feel that way because you got to go in blind and I didn't?" and your mind will be BLOWN, man.

For everyone else - the element of surprise is kind of the draw here, and it's easy to see why the script ended up on the black list for a bit. For the first half hour it's just a standard coming of age kind of deal, with a bullied nerdy kid named Cole crushing on his cool babysitter, who is spending the night when his parents go out of town on a romantic getaway. The babysitter invites some friends over and he plans to stay up and spy on them to see if they're having sex and/or can maybe inadvertently teach him something he can do with the girl next door. Instead, he witnesses them sacrificing a nerd (not unlike himself) as part of their Satanic ritual, only to discover he's their next target. Can he outsmart them all and escape with his life? And maybe kiss his crush and/or stand up to the neighborhood bully in the process?

That's actually the best thing about the movie - it doesn't stop being a coming of age film once the horror element is introduced. If anything, the horror stuff charmingly intersects with it; at one point Cole is being chased by the douchey guy cult member (they're all kind of stock *victim* stereotypes: the it girl, the douche, the cheerleader, the weirdo, and the (I didn't write the movie so don't yell at me) the Black guy) and realizes that his bully is nearby. Rather than kill them both or whatever, the cult douche actually gives Cole a little pep talk and some advice on how to fight back, then lets him go on ahead while he watches. It's sweet in a weird way, and I wish the movie had more of it, with *all* of the members realizing Cole had enough shit to deal with and didn't need to add their nonsense on top of it, or something. But as the occasional surprise button to an otherwise routine chase, it's refreshing.

And by chase I mean "Cole runs in or out of his house", because for some reason he acts like a shopping cart that will lock up if he gets 50 feet beyond his front door. More than once I couldn't see any discernible reason that he couldn't keep running to safety, making the film feel a bit cramped as he repeatedly runs back to where the bad guys are instead of the opposite direction (perhaps they could have had a pet he wanted to rescue or something?). Also, Weaving's Bee is weirdly sidelined for a while, limited to just rolling her eyes at her cohorts or hanging out in the background as one of them chases Cole somewhere, only to return full throttle for the final ten minutes or so. By now it's clear she's the real deal and a huge asset to a film, so I hope the sequel utilizes her throughout instead of reducing her to glorified extra for a sizable chunk in the middle (don't tell me either way!).

The other issue I had was with some of the half-assed Edgar Wright/Joseph Kahn style flourishes, which I can barely tolerate when they do it let alone a... let's just be nice and say "not as inventive" type like McG. Text on screen and the occasional slow/sped up shots pepper the film, thankfully not to the point of overloading it, but it has the opposite effect of simply being intrusive because they're so intermittent. Best to just not use such things at all, if you ask me. McG also inexplicably stages a car crash that both driver and the person he is hitting manage to survive like it was one of the epic ones he presented in Charlie's Angels*, instead of what the script probably called for (i.e. something less visually spectacular). Sometimes less is more, my good man.

But it's cute, surprisingly gory, has two great leads, and has the always welcome Ken Marino in a bit part as Cole's dad (and his mom is Leslie Bibb, another charming presence - I'm glad they are among the ones returning for the sequel). There's a breeziness to it I appreciated for sure, though I couldn't help but be somewhat disappointed that it occasionally flirts with being something even better only to scale back again. I'll get to the sequel in a couple weeks, promise! Also, since it's not available on disc I put the classic Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead in there instead. Dishes are done, man!

What say you?

*Remember when Joey rented it for Dawson thinking something fun/goofy would cheer him up after his dad died in a car crash and then there's like all these insane car crashes in it so Dawson's like "uh..." and Joey's mortified? Man, I miss the Creek. Wonder how my man Pacey is doing.

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