"The Babysitter", Netflix's original Friday the 13th offering, mixes its blood-spattered horror with a funny coming-of-age story. In fact, the entire first act is almost completely devoid of horrific elements and committed to letting the audience get to know its plucky hero. The movie starts with Cole (Judah Lewis), a twelve- year-old boy who still screams and struggles like a much younger child when it's time to get a shot. Cole is afraid of everything, constantly bullied, and completely oblivious to the fact that girl next door Melanie (Emily Alyn Lind) has a crush on him. Cole has a crush of his own, on his babysitter Bee (Samara Weaving). Why should he care about being too old to still need a babysitter when his parents want some time out of the house, when his sitter's this hot and this cool? She sticks up for him when he's being picked on, watches old movies with him, and indulges his nerdy hypothetical questions about which science fiction characters would make the best team for saving the world from evil.
Then things take a really dark turn. At Melanie's urging, Cole sneaks out of bed to spy on Bee. He catches her playing a game of Truth or Dare that ends with her giving quick kisses to jock Max (Robbie Amell), goth Sonya (Hana Mae Lee), and class clown John (Andrew Bachelor), and a long, passionate one to cheerleader Allison (Bella Thorne), before making out with her dorky boyfriend Samuel (Doug Haley) . . . and then knifing him in the head. Turns out Bee has promised her friends she can make all of their dreams come true if they participate in this Satanic ritual she knows. The ritual also involves taking a few harmless drops of blood from Cole, but when the clique finds out he's seen too much, they won't settle for that.
The stock characters that would have been helplessly butchered in 80's horror movies are the monsters here, but they're also still victims. As Cole faces his fears and makes them chase him around his house, they each end up meeting a gory demise one by one. Never mind the times where Cole gets outside of the house and then runs right back in, just for the sake of continuing their deadly game of tag for the sake of there being a movie.
Robbie Amell is a surprising standout. Very amiable for being both a dumb jock and a psycho killer, Max takes the occasional break from the chase to try to play big brother to Cole, mentoring him on how to stand up for himself before resuming trying to kill him. But it's really Judah Lewis and Samara Weaving's show. With all the time invested into getting to know them at the beginning of the movie, they manage to make you believe, or at least want to believe, that there's still genuine affection between the babysitter and her charge, even after she's set her friends on hunting him down. As a result, the inevitable confrontation between them is actually quite poignant and touching.
Director McG cut his teeth on music videos before helming 2000's TV to screen adaptation of "Charlie's Angels", which I always found fun and exciting (though I wish he hadn't let all the reviews praising the movie for not taking itself too seriously go to his head, since the sequel shifted from tongue-in-cheek to absurd self-parody) and his flashy style is on full display here. I found myself wondering how long we have until on-screen text and quirky soundtrack cues being treated like additional characters makes a movie feel dated instead of hip and modern, but I did grin at a couple of the captions and song choices, so here I'll allow it.
There's plenty of comically over-the-top gore, but moments meant to be suspenseful are more eye-rolling that nail-biting, so if you're looking for something to make you scream and jump out of your chair, this may be the wrong movie for you. But if you're looking for a sly and silly send-up of films about nubile teens being massacred and one with plenty of heart beneath the gruesome exterior, you may find yourself falling in love.
Then things take a really dark turn. At Melanie's urging, Cole sneaks out of bed to spy on Bee. He catches her playing a game of Truth or Dare that ends with her giving quick kisses to jock Max (Robbie Amell), goth Sonya (Hana Mae Lee), and class clown John (Andrew Bachelor), and a long, passionate one to cheerleader Allison (Bella Thorne), before making out with her dorky boyfriend Samuel (Doug Haley) . . . and then knifing him in the head. Turns out Bee has promised her friends she can make all of their dreams come true if they participate in this Satanic ritual she knows. The ritual also involves taking a few harmless drops of blood from Cole, but when the clique finds out he's seen too much, they won't settle for that.
The stock characters that would have been helplessly butchered in 80's horror movies are the monsters here, but they're also still victims. As Cole faces his fears and makes them chase him around his house, they each end up meeting a gory demise one by one. Never mind the times where Cole gets outside of the house and then runs right back in, just for the sake of continuing their deadly game of tag for the sake of there being a movie.
Robbie Amell is a surprising standout. Very amiable for being both a dumb jock and a psycho killer, Max takes the occasional break from the chase to try to play big brother to Cole, mentoring him on how to stand up for himself before resuming trying to kill him. But it's really Judah Lewis and Samara Weaving's show. With all the time invested into getting to know them at the beginning of the movie, they manage to make you believe, or at least want to believe, that there's still genuine affection between the babysitter and her charge, even after she's set her friends on hunting him down. As a result, the inevitable confrontation between them is actually quite poignant and touching.
Director McG cut his teeth on music videos before helming 2000's TV to screen adaptation of "Charlie's Angels", which I always found fun and exciting (though I wish he hadn't let all the reviews praising the movie for not taking itself too seriously go to his head, since the sequel shifted from tongue-in-cheek to absurd self-parody) and his flashy style is on full display here. I found myself wondering how long we have until on-screen text and quirky soundtrack cues being treated like additional characters makes a movie feel dated instead of hip and modern, but I did grin at a couple of the captions and song choices, so here I'll allow it.
There's plenty of comically over-the-top gore, but moments meant to be suspenseful are more eye-rolling that nail-biting, so if you're looking for something to make you scream and jump out of your chair, this may be the wrong movie for you. But if you're looking for a sly and silly send-up of films about nubile teens being massacred and one with plenty of heart beneath the gruesome exterior, you may find yourself falling in love.