Netflix has really been swinging for the fences when it comes to original content. They have very highly regarded dramas, comedies, even animated series. When I saw that they had an original horror movie, I wondered if they could pull this genre off just as well as the rest.
Cole Johnson isn’t exactly the epitome of a “popular kid” at school. He’s kinda nerdy, intelligent, and doesn’t have a lot of friends. Also, he is the last of his friends in his age group that still has a babysitter, but Cole is cool with that. If his friends had a babysitter as amazing as his, they all wouldn’t be making fun of him and treating him so badly. Bee is the best babysitter ever. She is funny, caring, smart, nerdy, and that’s all looking past her amazing good looks. She really seems to care about Cole and the two of them have the best of times when Cole’s parents go out for what they call “Hotel Therapy” sometimes.
Cole doesn’t seem to mind much that his parents leave him with Bee for a few days, as they have done so many times before. He’s content to talk nerdy movie stuff, eat pizza, have a dance party, and watch Billy Jack in the yard after dark. However, his friend and next door neighbor, Melanie ask Cole if he has ever stayed up late and spied on what Bee and her friends do while he’s supposed to be sleeping. Cole decides that this is the night that he will do just that. Much to his shock and horror, the things they do, are terrible, horrible, and very violent things… and Cole might be next.
Much like with Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil, The Babysitter manages to make a well-worn horror movie trope and freshen it up quite a bit. At no point during this movie did I roll my eyes at some terrible cliche playing out again, as it always has in movies in the past. There are funny original jokes, funny little bits, even some of the character quirks are original, or at least feel fresh enough here.
I’m just gonna say this up front, I loved this movie. The cast is full of young attractive and “relatively unknown” actors. (I say that only because they haven’t really done any big Hollywood produced movies, unlike who Netflix usually has cast.) The Babysitter is smartly written, and all the dialog feels totally appropriate for the group they are portraying WITHOUT stepping into the realm of overused memes and slang like other movies ham-fistedly cram in. It has a lot of style as well. The occasional use of overlay graphics is also used to great effect, without feeling overdone. Aside from some moments where my willful suspension of disbelief was stretched pretty thin, it’s really hard for me to find almost anything that I don’t like about the movie.
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