“The Babysitter” is not a good movie, let me make that clear. But that is absolutely what makes it so damn entertaining.
This Netflix original stars Judah Lewis as Cole a nerdy 12-year-old who still has a babysitter. That babysitter is high schooler Bee (Samara Weaving) — beautiful, cool and funny. Bee watches Cole for a weekend while his parents are out of town, and his neighbor Melanie convinces him to stay up past his bedtime to see what happens after he goes to sleep.
Cole sneaks to the balcony and witnesses what appears to be a game of spin the bottle among Bee and a group of her friends. As she goes to kiss the group’s nerdy newcomer, Bee suddenly drives two knives through his skull.
This is where the fun begins. Surprise — Bee is in a satanic cult.
Once Bee realizes that Cole has caught on to her cult’s murderous after school activities, the cult is out for more blood. Cole’s blood.
From here on out, the movie turns into a gory, campy blast. Director McG styles this movie as an ode to the teen slasher flicks of the 90s and early 2000s. He fulfils every trope from this genre’s canon. The hijinks are ridiculously over-the-top. Cole outwits each of his foes in completely unrealistic ways. While one of the cult members is literally in the middle of attempting to choke out Cole, he takes a beat to give Cole advice on how to best his relentless bully…right before he returns to attempting to murder Cole.
Pretty much every single scene has suspended the audience’s belief. None of these situations are slightly plausible, even for a horror movie. But what makes it work is that McG and his cast are completely self-aware of the kind of movie they created.
Each character is a stereotype from the movie playbook. You got your nerds, the hot cool girl, the jock, the bullies, the clueless parents, the girl next door, the cheerleader…I could go on. Each actor gives an over-the-top performance, spewing out sometimes cringeworthily bad dialogue, but completely committing to fulfilling the stereotype they were given.
The prime example being the cheerleader being shot in the boob. She whines and cries over the injury, but not because of the real possibility of bleeding out, but because she fears no boy will ever want to touch her again. While the majority of these performances are completely outrageous, there are a couple of scene stealers in the cast — namely Leslie Bibb and Ken Marino as Cole’s parent’s and Andrew Bachelor as cult member John.
Does “The Babysitter” deserve any kind of award? God no. But it’s a blast from start to finish. It’s a modern day B-movie, worthy of a cult following. It’s a deliciously silly movie perfect for horror movie buffs.
– by Brynne Ramella
