Tuesday, October 31, 2017

NETFLIX AND KILL: THE BABYSITTER (2017) ** ½


Cole (Judah Lewis) is a nerdy, bullied kid that still has a babysitter (Samara Weaving).  Fortunately for him (and the audience), she’s smoking hot.  Cole wonders exactly what it is the babysitter does after he goes to bed, so he is determined to stay up late and find out.  As it turns out, she likes to bring her friends over to perform a human sacrifice. 

I really wanted to like The Babysitter, but despite a handful of funny moments, the movie often acts like it’s too cool for its own good.  The way the characters endlessly spout out pop culture references (not to mention endless obscenities) grows tiresome, and the on-screen graphics that occasionally pop up to add an exclamation mark on the proceedings gets old fast.  I mean, the whole thing is pretty much taken from Cole’s perspective anyway, so there’s a heightened sense of childhood paranoia already on display.  Having all the title cards popping up is just gratuitous.  (Example:  When Cole witnesses a human sacrifice in his living room, the letters “W…T…F?!?” appear just below his horrified expression.) 

Director McG is deliberately going over the top with the gore and the performances, which is fine.  I even dig the retro-‘80s vibe he’s trying to give off during the death sequences.  I just wish he was a little more disciplined when it came to all the Edgar Wright-inspired graphics. 

Even though the film is tonally a mess, the performances are so good that it really works better than it should.  Lewis makes for a likeable young hero, but it’s Samara Weaving that steals the show as the sexy and deadly babysitter.  No matter what the movie’s faults are, it still has a scene in which she and Bella (Amityville:  The Awakening) Thorne play Truth or Dare and make out with each other.  Because of that, a lot of its sins are easily forgiven. 

Thorne also gets the best line of the movie when she gets shot in the boob and says, “Can’t you just put a tampon in there?” 

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