“The Babysitter” (2017) was so painfully cringe that I almost couldn’t bring myself to finish it.
Although the movie is labeled as a horror-comedy, the first third is spent on a painfully unfunny coming-of-age segment that drags on for so long, I genuinely thought it took at least half the film. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part that I was getting closer to being free of it.
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
The movie has an intense shift in tone around a third of the way through when Bee (Samara Weaving) kills Samuel (Doug Haley) by stabbing knives into his skull. I don’t really understand how that’s possible, but I’m just an art major, what do I know? I suppose skulls really are that delicate.
The only positive thing I have to say about this film is this shift, because, up until this point, Cole (Judah Lewis), our ‘narrator,’ thought he lived a normal life in a normal world. This earth-shattering realization, that his babysitter is sacrificing people to make a deal with the devil, changes everything for him. The movie also becomes significantly more bearable after this shift.
Slight aside, why is Bee murdering people in Cole’s living room? Does she not have her own place? How is she cleaning up blood that quickly? Why? Just why?
Also, as Samuel is being murdered — somehow incredibly slowly — Cole watches in horror. We already have a close-up of Cole’s face; we really don’t need “WHAT THE FUCK” slapped onto our screens to tell us what he’s thinking. We also don’t need text on screen telling us that a pocket knife is a pocket knife.
Bee spends the majority of this scene staring seductively at Samuel’s corpse, which is being held up as they drain it of blood to be used in the ritual.
These are just a few examples of the unnecessary and unpleasant decisions that were made in this film.
Other failings of this film include Bella Thorne delivering her lines with all the stiffness and skill of a high schooler reading lines from Shakespeare for the first time in their English class. Allison (Bella Thorne) being written as two-dimensional and self-obsessed, as only someone with the vaguest idea of a teenager can manage. We get a weird up-nose shot of Cole as he runs back to his room (I really feel like the opposite angle, his hands desperately scrambling to open the door, would have been more effective. I want nothing more than to see less of this kid’s face.) Also, Max (Robbie Amell) deciding to teach Cole how to stand up for himself, even though Max only attended the party to murder people and fully intends to murder Cole.
After defeating Bee, Cole steals his girlfriend’s dad’s car and drives it into the house, “killing” Bee. At this point, Bee and Cole have killed everyone, so there’s really no point in doing any of this, other than to result in a surprisingly good and wholesome ending for the film that they promptly throw out the window (pun intended) in the after-credits scene to leave room for a sequel.
End of Spoilers
Spend time with your loved ones. Read a book. Watch paint dry. Read receipts. Collect toenail clippings and make sculptures with them. I don’t care. Anything is a better use of your life and your time than this film, and that’s all you need to know about it.
