In keeping with the theme of Spooktober, and in particular, Spooktober but not particularly spooky (which means more to me as someone who has written half of this month’s content already, with a scary amount of it being done today), I’ve opted to review The Babysitter, released in 2017. It wasn’t my first watch, I saw it back in 2019 myself, but we didn’t really write an awful lot on here back then. ‘Twas a quiet year.
The synopsis of the movie, as explained by a Google search for “The Babysitter”, is as follows :
When Cole stays up past his bedtime, he discovers that his hot baby sitter belongs to a satanic cult that will stop at nothing to keep him quiet.
That sums it up quite nicely, to be honest. Cole stays up past his bedtime, witnesses his babysitter (who is, I have to agree, an attractive woman), murder a young man of around the same age as her, with her friends, and once they realise he has witnessed the act, they work to silence him.
Now, I’m going to go out here and say this. I’m British. I don’t understand the ages that Americans are when they’re at the various schools they go to. I don’t get it, it’s not information that matters to me in any way, shape, or form. All that said, there is particular effort taken to sexualise the satanic cult members, in particular the character of Bee, the babysitter, through deliberately showy same-sex kisses (think Cruel Intentions, turned up to maybe an 8, including the tiny bit of saliva as they part lips), and one particular shot that shows off her ass. I have to assume that, based on the obvious moral and legal implications of sexualising someone who shouldn’t be sexualised – character or otherwise – that Bee and her friends are supposed to be adults. I know the performers are, heck, Samara Weaving is older than I am, but it’s important to note that for those of us that don’t know these things, it’s a very grey area as to how we’re supposed to feel about it all.
The movie spends a good portion of the set up time showing how much of a loser, by most people’s standards, the main character Cole actually is, as well as showing how great the pairing of Cole and Bee are as friends, outside of their professional relationship. It is evident by the very nature of what happens in the early scene – her putting the fear of God into Cole’s bully, giving him a lift home, his staring at her breasts when she leans into the back of the car… That he’s infatuated with her in the way that all pubescent boys are infatuated with attractive women, as well as the fact that they know each other well, she clearly has some level of care for him, and that he really is going to feel betrayed when she – spoiler alert – betrays him.
Now, in terms of the violence, it ranges from gratuitous to barely showing us anything all at once. I can only assume that this was to fit the 15 age rating that it currently has. To highlight this though, let me give some examples, in as not-spoiler-like I can manage. The first death is particularly graphic – two knives, into the head, a bit of conversation about it, the blood spatter, all of it. Someone else gets blown / burned up, and it happens almost entirely off-screen. Seems like there’s some disparity, to me, so I assume it’s an age rating thing, like I say. Maybe being burned to a crisp, or the flesh melted from your body, turns a film into an R?
All in all, the film knows that it isn’t overly original, and plays on that. It knows we expect the cliché and kind of provides it anyway whilst simultaneously subverting it and providing social commentary. There’s a scene where some police turn up at the house and immediately, their guns are trained on the black member of the cult, as opposed to the topless white guy, even when the topless white guy has just thrown a poker straight through one of their eye sockets. If that’s not a comment on cop culture in America – something we’ve all had a bit of an eye opener with these last few years – then I don’t know what is.
It also tackles the subject of growing up and standing up for ourselves quite nicely. The film makes no secret of the fact that Cole is considered a pussy by his fellow students, doesn’t stand up for himself very well, and generally is walked all over by everyone that wants to, but he develops the ability to defend himself as the film goes on, helped in no small part by the antagonists of the movie, in particular Bee and Max, with him going from causing accidental death during self defence, to pretty much premeditated murder. Though I’m sure there’s probably not a state court in the country that would try him for it.
It’s a good film – not overly funny, if I’m brutally honest, but there are some very touching moments throughout, making this feel more like a standard horror than a comedy one, in my book. It works, though. There’s nothing specifically wrong with it, beyond the fact that there’s not much to laugh about during, with a good portion of the attempts at humour being over-the-top reactions from the characters within, most notably Cole’s facial expressions, and John’s reactions to being covered in blood.
Had I been bothered enough, I’d have made an actual “whilst-watching” note about the camera work, because I do that sometimes when I watch shows and films – I don’t just do these things from memory when I’ve finished. There were a few times when it was particularly disorientating, mostly during moments when Cole was, himself, disorientated, with this being achieved using – I assume from the angles and motion – a body-mounted camera facing the actor, Happens a lot in drug sequences, I’ve just seen an example in a chase scene from 28 Weeks Later, it’s a method which gets good effects most of the time, when we want things to be face paced, disorientating for the viewer, whilst representing a sense of unease being felt by the character in question. It fit the circumstances perfectly in the scenes I noticed it being used, here.
Not much of note in the way of the audio used – with the exception of our seeing the two characters bonding with the song I Want To Make Love To You by Foghat playing, and then We Are The Champions, towards the end, but both scenes place extra emphasis on the music at that time, so it feels like cheating. Cos, you know, it’s cheating to compliment the music in Shaun of the Dead when all four times you can think about (if you can think of four) are either specifically highlighted by character conversation (Chicago’s If You Leave Me Now, and Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now), a comedy moment, highlighted by the characters (White Lines, Grandmaster Flash), or the song that plays at the end (Queen’s You’re My Best Friend). In The Babysitter, it’s just the emphasised music that I really noticed, and in a way that’s good, cos it didn’t stand out, but it also means there’s little to say about it. Yet here I am, having waffled on for quite a sizeable paragraph.
In summary, it’s a good film – a bit sexy, a bit violent, but it’s more touching than it is amusing. I’d watch it again, for sure, and before anyone asks, no, not just because of the girl on girl action, but for the movie as a whole. It’s less than 90 minutes long, feels quite a bit less, which means it’s a quick film, it doesn’t drag on and on and on like some do. Once it hits the gas, it keeps on going, it doesn’t stop for fuel halfway down the road because it shot its load too early. There’s always something important happening. And damn, that’s good.
8/10
-TG
Oh, and did you know they made a second one? Yeah, expect a review for that some time this month too – not worked out when, specifically, but it’ll be there, you can count on it.
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