The Babysitter

I caught this on a boring summer afternoon on, surprise!, Lifetime. The story itself COULD be promising- an innocent teen babysitter is unwittingly the object of obsession for virtually every man she encounters in one night- but the filmmakers try to turn it into a masterpiece of surrealism that it obviously is not. The acting is pretty shallow and most of the 'fantasies' are just downright creepy, not thought provoking. The movie will leave you feeling like you just dropped a massive amount of acid. Don't waste your time.

I've sometimes disliked or out right hated films that are almost universally applauded in a film that I dislike so I'm glad to see that my own sentiments with this film are generally the same as many others within this community...

Let's begin by saying this film is strange....very strange... but strangeness in a film is not always a negative, but when the film is boring and lacking in any kind of momentum...well that's when it starts running in to problems...

So effectively here we have Alicia Silverstone as the babysitter (playing a sort of Lolita type). Whilst Ms Silverstone is quite alluring and ever so slightly delectable there's not much else worthy of praise within the film...

If we look at the competing parties for Lolita (sorry the babysitters affections) we have straight-laced Jack, cool street-wise Mark and more disturbingly the father of the children whom the babysitter is minding namely Harry Tucker. Through psychedelic and maniacal flashbacks the film tries to present a story from each of their perspectives (of course the film shows you what they want you to see which is far removed from the reality of what actually happens). Aside from the Babysitter, the only other person I felt a bit sorry for was Jack whom you felt that if he had just been himself that he may have got somewhere with the Babysitter (as opposed to him listening to Mark and his misguided attempts at self-confidence).

Of course there are 2 sides to a coin and looking at things from another perspective we have Dolly Tucker (whom is the wife of Harry). Whilst she puts on a strong front for most of the film, once the alcohol kicks in she shows her true colours and starts indulging in her own fantasies (at least in her own mind). All these things seem to act as a driver to what little plot there is here, but none of these arcs add up to much in the way of suspense, enjoyment or just good all round audience involvement.

To be blunt, The Babysitter is not very good plain and simple. Even the acting from everyone involved is pretty poor and at times the film has an odd theatrical feel about it. I could see what the filmmakers were trying to do here, but they made a right mess of it.

The Babysitter is about this beautiful babysitter(Alicia Silverstone) that everybody adores and has every day fantasies about her. One night, while she is babysitting for the Tucker family, her boyfriend Jack(Jeremy London), her ex boyfriend Mark(Nicky Katt), and Mr.Tucker(J.T Walsh), all want to seduce the babysitter and make their fantasies come true. The plot was alright, i mean, the fantasies were pretty realistic in some way. We all have them at some point. But it gets kinda boring and predictable after a while and the babysitter turns into nothing special. I would give The Babysitter 6/10

Alicia Silverstone is so pretty, so good, I hope she gets some decent material someday. This film wasn't very good. Miss Silverstone was good, but the film could have really used some more exposure (wink, nod). At least she did spend a fair part of the movie in a bubble bath, but she seemed to have a flesh-colored towel in there when she was moving very much. I will have to give some credit to J. T. Walsh and Lee Garlington as the Tuckers. It was fairly fun to watch them get more and more hammered at the party. I've heard that drunkenness is difficult for an actor, but these two made it quite believable. Overall, this film is of interest only to Silverstone fans, (real ones, because she does NO nude scenes here) Grade: D

Has neither the style nor the substance to make it a cult classic. An erotic thriller without any traces of sex or justifiable nudity. Jennifer, the babysitter is an one dimensional person without any depth or insight or even any symbolic meaning. The Babysitter(1995) has a good premise that wasn't explored deeply and the fantasy scenes are bland and surreal less. The Babysitter(1995) is a film that would be much better in the hands of someone like a Luis Bunuel, Nicolas Roeg, Terry Gilliam, or a Abel Ferrara. J.T Walsh's performance is so good that it belongs in a Luis Bunuel Movie rather than this terrible excuse for a motion picture.