Director: McG

Writer: Brian Duffield

Starring: Samara Weaving, Judah Lewis, Hana Mae Lee, Robbie Amell, Bella Thorne

Rating: ★★★

The Babysitter is a horror comedy, directed by McG and written by Brian Duffield, that was released on Netflix in 2017. Judah Lewis stars as Cole, a twelve year old who is bullied by his classmates for still having a babysitter, Bee (Samara Weaving). One night Cole secretly stays up and finds out that Bee and her friends are satanists. He witnesses the group sacrifice someone and then they turn on him as he tries to escape.  

For the first half an hour or so of The Babysitter there’s no signs that things are going to get bloody. It’s essentially just Cole and Bee hanging out, watching films, eating pizza, and deciding on the best sci-fi team ups to destroy the big bad. It feels very much like a coming-of-age comedy, and then everything changes in an instant when Cole sneaks downstairs in the middle of the night and finds Bee stabbing someone in the head and collecting his blood in goblets with her friends, as part of a satanic ritual.

From that point onwards there’s a lot of blood, and a lot of death. The deaths come quick with police showing up and the satanists making quick work on them. The effects are decent, and there’s some eye-wincing moments, but it’s not overly gory. The horrible looking spiders in the crawlspace under the house are probably the most chilling part of the film. The violence is over-the-top and goody, and funny to watch. It goes full-on Home Alone at moments as Cole runs around the house, tripping his pursuers over with toys left around on the floor, and using fireworks to take out them out. Weirdly, for a film about satanists, there’s nothing quite satanic about it beyond the initial ritual. It’s closer to a home invasion film, with next to nothing being supernatural about it.  

It’s all light-hearted fun to watch, with nothing coming close to being scary throughout its eighty-minute runtime. It does have a lot of funny moments, with good slapstick and referential humour, but at the same time none of the jokes are that memorable. Samara Weaving is fantastic, as always, and the rest of the cast are good as well. Overall, The Babysitter is a good comedy. It did well enough to get a sequel in 2020 with McG hoping for a third film as well.

Thanks for reading! If you liked my review, please subscribe to never miss a post: