![]() ![]() ![]() What follows is like a demented version of Home Alone, Cole using household items and cunning to prevent himself from becoming the next victim of Bee and her friends. Panicking, Cole tries to make his escape, but in doing so, alerts Bee and her pals, who give chase. Spying from the landing, Cole sees Bee and several friends playing spin the bottle followed by a spot of ritualistic murder and some dabbling in the occult. When Cole's parents leave for the weekend, leaving him in the care of Bee, Melanie dares the boy to stay awake to see what his babysitter gets up to after he is in bed. Judah Lewis plays timid twelve-year-old Cole, the target of local bullies Cole's only friends are pretty neighbour Melanie (Emily Alyn Lind), and his sexy babysitter Bee (Samara Weaving). Now, Netflix original The Babysitter, a tongue-in-cheek tween horror, sees McG bouncing back, delivering a film that, while short on logic and heavy on the gimmicky music video style editing, guarantees a lot of mindless fun. Music video director McG's first feature, Charlie's Angels, received a fair amount of critical backlash, but I found it to be pretty entertaining in an inconsequential and undemanding way however, the subsequent stinker of a sequel and the abysmal Terminator Salvation had me writing the director off as a no-hoper. I hope the three leads get more good work out of this, because they all do a fabulous job with the material - there's not a lot to work with, but each of the three (the babysitter, boy kid, and his bestie girl) give you a good show and don't fall into the trap that this film could easily have done: there's not a scenery chewer among them, and they all do a great job of keeping their eye on the prize: a silly, fun, bit nostalgic, Halloween slasher. But if you're in your 30s or 40s, it's gonna be a lot more enjoyable, since you know and recognize all the tropes at play, but know that the filmmakers know and are just letting you have fun watching them play out. A soft PG-13 would be the MPAA rating for this if it wasn't Netflix, and it's appropriate for your tweens. Not anywhere near as serious as the Scream franchise tries to be with the horror/slasher genre, this film takes the opposite tact: remember that these films are for fun and a bit of escapism. Completely self-aware of all the slasher films it mimics, and more than able to mine the comedy in those memes, this film is just a hoot. That's not to say it's not extremely successful at what it aspires to: good, silly fun for Halloween. A little bit of gore, a little bit of T&A, outrageously stereotypical high school kids, and nothing in the way of a plot to worry about. This is exactly what a good Halloween prank should look like. The Good: Looks great Solid soundtrack Perfectly crafted The Bad: Nothing immediatly springs to mind Things I Learnt From This Movie: We still didn't find out why he was shirtless!!!! There are spoilt kids, then there is him It's normally ugly people who are sacrificed A gory rollercoaster ride that tips its hat to 80's classics but brings them into a new era which I couldn't help but appreciate. I get the impression this will be one of those odd titles like the infamously hated The Hottie & The Nottie (2008) which folks don't agree with me on but I think this was excellent. Early on I recognised that the film had a real charm about it but I certainly never expected it to be THIS good. ![]() Make no mistake this is not a light hearted piece and is overflowing with lashings of violence and gore to go hand in hand with the hilarity. ![]() A Netflix original movie starring Samara Weaving, Hana Mae Lee, Bella Thorne, Leslie Bibb and Ken Marino it looks shiney, makes great use of it's soundtrack and has a wonderful 1980's vibe about it. One night he falls curious to what she does after he goes to sleep and see's more than he ever could have expected. It tells the story of a scaredy cat weak little boy who still has a babysitter. Anyone who knows me is aware that the older I'm getting the stricter I am with my ratings, so how did a goofy little horror comedy just get a 9/10? Well, because it's actually really damn good. ![]()
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