Director: McG

Writers: Dan Lagana, Brad Morris, Jimmy Warden, and McG

Starring: Judah Lewis, Emily Alyn Lind, Jenna Ortega, Robbie Amell, Andrew Bachelor, Leslie Bibb, Hana Mae Lee, Bella Thorne, Samara Weaving, Ken Marino

Rating: ★★1/2

The Babysitter: Killer Queen is the sequel to the 2017 horror comedy. This time around everything is more extreme. There are bigger laughs, more characters, and even more blood and gore. Picking up two years after the first film, Cole (Judah Lewis) is still struggling to get over what happened he found out his babysitter was part of a satanic cult. The worst thing is no one believes that even happened. With his parents looking to send him to a psychiatric school, Cole decides to go to a party at the lake with his neighbour, Melanie (Emily Alyn Lind). While they’re at the party it turns out that Melanie is also looking to complete the ritual that Bee (Samara Weaving) wanted to complete in the first film and turns on Cole. 

Almost straight away you know this is going to be even more goofier than the first one. There’s more slapstick comedy and an even more light-hearted tone. It’s funnier than the first film, although there’s a few jokes that just don’t work and are simply awkward. There’s more characters as well, but the villains from the original are quickly resurrected so the new characters don’t really do anything, to the point that they’re silent during the scene where the original cast come back. They’re just there to give the film a higher body count. There are some inventive deaths, although two people just explode as there’s no use for them in the story anymore, which is a little lazy. There is also a lot more referential humour throughout the film to various things from Friday the 13^th to The Terminator, as well as call-backs to the first film. It’s very self-aware, without it being too much, so it’s funny and not obnoxious.

If you watch this film, you have to really just not think about it. None of it make sense. To start, Cole should be fourteen in this film, as it’s two years after the first film, except he looks and acts like he’s older. Melanie is old enough to drive but is in the same year as Cole. It would have made sense to set it a few more years after. Then Melanie knows about the book, and has her name written in it, from the first film even though she was one of the good guys in the original and the book was burnt. Which would surely mean that she was a satanist before the first film? Without spoiling anything, Bee’s motivation, in her cameo appearance, just makes no sense at all. It doesn’t gel with the first film at all. Saying that, the film is still a lot of fun, you just have to switch off and enjoy the goofiness of it all and not think about the plot too much. 

Killer Queen is funnier than the original, although it doesn’t make as much sense. If you switch off and just go with it, you’ll have a good time. A third film hasn’t yet been announced, but McG has said that he’s hopeful it will happen to finish the series off. 

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