HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2020: The Babysitter (2017)

Our sponsor today is an extremely generous old friend who has had an impact on helping a number of podcasters thrive--he designed the website for Better In The Dark, the movie podcast that ran for seven years and still apparently has fans and influence (it weirds me out when I hear some podcasters refer to it as a ‘first gen’ film podcast, and me as a ‘first gen’ podcast host), he got me a blu-ray player out of the blue, and presently he is the author of The New Olympians, a series of superhero prose ebooks.  Go check them out!

Kelly represents The Wounded Warriors Family Support.

Kelly has chosen for me a film that I’ve seen before, a film that cemented my super-crush on one Samara Weaving, the surprising McG-directed comedic thriller The Babysitter!

Cole (Judah Lewis) is, well, a nerd who is afraid of everything, probably due to having some serious helicopter parents (the father of which is played by The State’s Ken Marino!).  He is picked on by almost everyone, even the father of the neighbor girl he has a crush on.  He does have one exceptionally cool friend, though--Bee (Weaving), who is still babysitting him even though he’s fourteen.  Bee is super-hot, she seems to be into a lot of the same geeky things Cole is into, and she has his back.  When the neighbor girl (Emily Alan Lynd) dares Cole to investigate whether Bee is having boys over for sexy times, Cole does so...and finds out that his babysitter is the head of a satanic cult, and now he has to fight for his life.

Now, I will get to the absolute goddesshood of Ms. Weaving eventually.  But this rewatch--the first time I watched it since I saw it when it came out on Netflix--what struck me was how so many of the things that used to piss me off about McG in his earlier films were still there, but he was picking and choosing his places to use them much, much more wisely.  He’s not letting the tricks that he used to weigh his films down with (I’m looking at you, f’in Charlie’s Angels) interfere with telling a story anymore, and that makes for a better viewing experience.  The fact that it takes almost twenty minutes before we see that ‘fast ramp’ stuff he reveled in in the ‘00s allowed me to focus on Cole and Bee and their relationship, allowed me to recognize it as real, so that when the rug is pulled out on us shortly after, there is some surprise.

And that, besides her hotness, is what makes Samara Weaving so much the star of this film--she is able to skip back and forth across that line between good and evil effortlessly without making me question her character.  I never felt anything other than affection from Bee for Cole; the lengths she seems to go to fool him before ordering her cult-o-stereotypes to kill him seem like a legit attempt to keep him alive.  And the disappointment when Cole refuses to participate in one of their rituals in the third act is palatable.  

Not that there aren’t other stand-outs in this cast.  I would be a very, very poor critic if I did not praise Rob Ammell for his performance as the psychotic quarterback, almost perpetually shirtless Max.  The scene where Max stops literally choking Cole to death to pep talk him into a confrontation with his bully could have come off as ludicrous, but Ammell pulls it off.  I get the sense that Max kind of respects Cole after a certain act, and while he does want him to die, he doesn’t want him to die like a bitch.  While I also enjoyed some of the other cultists, Max is the stand out.

I do worry that some of the choices McG makes are so of the time--the titles during the story, the really obvious music cues, the knowingly sarcastic tone, the really awkward cutaway scene that not only comes out of nowhere, but serves to disrupt the until-then seamless focus on Cole’s story--that this film will age pretty poorly pretty quickly.  And that’s a shame, because there is so much to like here.  I don’t think there’s anyone in the cast that isn’t giving it their all, and I think the story arc for Cole is strong.  It is a genuinely good film, funny and gory although not particularly scary, and I do recommend it.

There’s no sponsor tomorrow, so the Randomizer has gifted me with another film teaming those two Titans of The Golden Age of British Horror, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, The Creeping Flesh!

There are No More Sponsorship Slots Left in the Halloween Horrorfest this year...but you can force me into overtime, continuing my Gauntlet of Ghoulishness into November!  You have four options if you wish to do so:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko'Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Black Lives Matter.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.