Support Us
Sign Up
Key Takeaways
Bombastic B-Movies: Christina Brennan’s column celebrates the good, the bad, and the ridiculous from the world of cult movies and trash cinema. Featuring sexy stars, slapstick comedy, and pulse-pounding action, indulge in the thrill of the unexpected and find out about cinema’s funniest and weirdest B-movies.
Samara Weaving The Babysitter: Dream Girls Can Be Nightmares Too
In 2017, Netflix threw a wad of cash at a new teen horror movie idea from the writer-director and record producer Joseph McGinty Nichol (known professionally as McG). Having tried his hand at multiple genres, from military-themed science-fiction movies (including the fourth installment of the Terminator franchise) to a spy-movie/romantic comedy hybrid (This Means War), McG dove into creating a gore-splattered slasher movie to add to his filmography.
Yet his slasher movie put a new twist on the familiar cat-and-mouse pursuits of Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), and other runaway box office successes. Instead, McG wondered what a slasher thriller would look like if one of the most clichéd tropes of the genre – the babysitter-in-peril – were turned on its head to make the babysitter the knife-wielding, slasher killer at the heart of the movie.
Samara Weaving The Babysitter 2017
In the movie that sealed Samara Weaving’s cult horror stardom, McG took a sharp box cutter to some of the conventional character types of slasher horror. Instead, The Babysitter is a gutsy, glamorous suspense ride that swaps the lumbering Michael Myers-style psychopath wreaking havoc in sleepy American suburbia with a fresher and considerably more fun take on the genre.
“Samara Weaving helms the film as a monster with a mission, exuding sex appeal whilst perfectly balancing the charming with the creepy and sinister.”
In The Babysitter, we meet teenager Cole (played with naïve, wide-eyed innocence by Judah Lewis, who has a crush on his beautiful babysitter, Bee (played with memorable zest by Weaving). Not long after his parents leave him with this babysitter for the first time at their quiet suburban house, things start getting dark. And violent. And bloody. And gory.
Cole’s new babysitter turns out to be part of a sinister, demonic cult. Cole creeps downstairs in the middle of the night to watch his babysitter with her high-school friends. Supported by a colorful ensemble cast, Samara Weaving is the lynchpin of the movie as the stunningly beautiful babysitter. A game of ‘Spin the Bottle’ turns from harmless fun into a bloody and destructive game. Weaving offers a kick-ass performance and plays up to the stereotypical babysitter character who gets boys hot under the collar.
Playing everything with tongue-in-cheek humor, she helms the film as a monster with a mission, exuding sex appeal whilst perfectly balancing the charming with the creepy and sinister. Aided by the script, Weaving slyly deconstructs well-known tropes of horror. In response to Cole’s pursuit by high school bullies, she offers sage advice to the teenage boy (“Pop them in the dick”, she advises). She’s even able to heighten the emotions on cue. There’s a final scene that tests Weaving’s acting mettle and makes you feel some ounce of sympathy for the villainous character.
With Weaving’s character as the figurehead of a devil-worshipping cult, The Babysitter is a heady mix of nostalgia and horror-inflected comedy. Yet it’s likely to appeal to fans of the most twisted and unrestrained slashers, like the recent Terrifier franchise (2016-present), that continues to unleash a tornado of violence on their audiences. McG reminds us that our villains are still teenagers despite their bloodthirsty impulses.
The script is filled with corny wisecracks (including one who comments that the bloody “Spin the Bottle” game would go viral if filmed and uploaded online since no one else has done ‘human sacrifice’ in America – especially with ‘hot people’. When the cult decides that they need Cole’s blood for a satanic ritual, Cole proves himself to be more resourceful than he knows and is a better fighter than most of the teenage cult members.
The Babysitter is Home Alone with extreme gore and lethal traps (a particularly sticky moment involves a fire rocket and bug spray). Acting talent aside, I dug how at home Weaving seemed amongst the gory practical effects of the film. There’s a campy gleefulness to the bloodshed that echoes other more memorable films like The Evil Dead (1983) and its sequels. The Babysitter may be a fairly different type of movie.
Still, the way Weaving embraces the tropes that horror film fans love – the shameless displays of carnage juxtaposed alongside extreme slapstick – echoes Ash in The Evil Dead franchise, who can rise to the occasion and squeeze new types of comedy and slapstick into scenes of gore and horror. McG’s filmmaking may be somewhat over-the-top and staged, and the supernatural story elements hilariously unconvincing, but The Babysitter is also riotously funny and doesn’t take itself too seriously.
All things considered, I love Samara Weaving, and I love The Babysitter. You don’t have to be a horror film fan to appreciate this Netflix movie. It is an easy-going horror romp with a strong soundtrack (where you sample Queen’s ‘We are the Champions’ alongside Dusty Springfield) with a stunning leading villain. If you want to squeeze more out of your Netflix account, check out The Babysitter.With the sequel also on Netflix and the third film probably on the way, you’ll have plenty to get your teeth into if you’re a fan of high-school horror movies.
The Babysitter (2017)
When Cole stays up past his bedtime, he discovers that his hot babysitter is part of a Satanic cult that will stop at nothing to keep him quiet.
