Babysitter Must Die

Honestly, a little too much unexplained and a little too short - I think the invaders could have been toyed with a bit more in their search for Josie - but mostly just hoping for a sequel that will help flesh out the backstory further. A lot of the dialogue hints at something bigger.

Look, this might have been able to get 4 stars from me had the "babysitter" been 12 or 13 years old. However, watching a 20 year old running around in pig tails, talking about summer camp and merritt badges got real lame, real fast.

I say pass.

While this is a pretty play by numbers movie there are enough scenes and weird random ridiculous things going on then you can get a good smart or even laugh out of watching this. The premise of the babysitter using her earned merit badge skills and talents against the bad guys was interesting and the bad guys and their lines was comical, the lady villain in all black took her role super seriously and kept you engaged. The script was pretty bad but I wasn't expecting too notch dialogue anyway. Like I said initially, this is a "Friday Night just put something on already" bad movie that once you know that going in just relax and kill some time.

Characterization needed a lot of massaging - it's not enough to say "cultists" and make them weird crazy people when we have to watch them for the next hour. There's only three of them so I should know why every one of them is willing to die for this cult or why they want out. If we don't need to know them that well, we also don't need them onscreen for 75% of the film.

Riley Scott and the character Josie are terrific: Scott has the cocky humor when it's in the script so she should get more of an opportunity to use it. There's enough of an underdog hero aesthetic and an amusing basis for her to have a near-superpower set of abilities but ultimately, she's underutilized. The setup is basically a Lovecraftian take on Die Hard so we kinda needed a lot more of that. It's cultists and a rich guy's house not Nakatomi Plaza, so we could have totally been treated to some really brutal "Home Alone" shenanigans but ultimately there just wasn't enough to work with.

Fight scenes are pretty good, the acting was decent - would have probably been a lot better if there was more to work with on the page. The premise is solid but it felt like they rushed the script.

I'd watch a sequel if they wanted to really go with it. More numerous cultists, or really eff a handful of them up by the end, Harry and Marv style, and play it for laughs. This felt too timid to be as good as it could have been. Funnier, bloodier, creepier... something.

I'm rating this movie a 5. I want to give it higher. I really do, because I enjoyed it. It was a good movie. However, there was truthfully so much unrealized potential here, and I think that's what bothered me the most about it. I wanted it to be better. I wanted it to be more. I wanted it to be longer. I wanted the babysitter to kick more butt. I wanted her to be this unstoppable force. Maybe they will make a sequel, and maybe it will be everything that I wanted this movie to be.