SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: THE BABYSITTER: KILLER QUEEN (2020) **

(Streamed via Netflix)

I reviewed McG’s The Babysitter as part of The 31 Days of Horror-Ween celebration three years ago.  I don’t remember a whole lot about it, other than Samara Weaving and Bella Thorne were smoking hot in it.  Too bad both of their roles are severely limited this time out.

Well, it’s two years later, and Cole (Judah Lewis) still hasn’t gotten over almost being sacrificed by his deranged babysitter (Weaving).  When his high school crush Melanie (Emily Alyn Lind) invites him for a weekend getaway at the lake, he grudgingly goes along.  Of course, it doesn’t take long before the members of the cult from the first movie come back to life and try to sacrifice Cole… again. 

This ADD sequel tries way too hard to be edgy and cool, and a lot of McG’s cinematic gymnastics act as irritating punctuations on the already over the top humor.  As with the original, many of the pop culture references feel forced or fall flat.  The exaggerated death scenes suffer from some shitty CGI too.  I don’t think there was any reason for this to be a hundred and two freaking minutes either.  If McG cut back on all the VHS interludes, gratuitous dance sequences, and video game fight scenes, he might’ve gotten this down to an acceptable eighty-eight minutes or so.

It’s interesting because whenever McG shifts into a lower gear, it almost threatens to work.  For example, Ken Marino and Leslie Bibb are quite amusing as Cole’s parents, who clearly think he’s a nutcase.  They seem to be playing in an entirely different (funnier) movie.  Whenever the over the top antics start ramping back up, things start going downhill fast. 

If anything, The Babysitter:  Killer Queen just goes to show just how much Weaving’s presence salvaged the original.  She isn’t in this one very much (it’s essentially a glorified cameo) and her absence is certainly felt throughout.  Thorne gets more screen time than Weaving, but all she gets to do is rehash the same shit she did last time. 

Then again, no matter how irritating much of this was, the old school punk fan in me can’t completely hate any movie that features a slow-motion character introduction set to the tune of The Cramps’ “The Way I Walk” or an action sequence that prominently features The Dead Kennedys’ “Police Truck”.    

Lind gets the best line when she says, “Plan B is more than a pill I take on Saturdays.”