Babysitter Wanted(2008)
* * ½ / * * * *
I won't lie, at the opening of BABYSITTER WANTED, I was thinking, "Oh no, not another torture movie." Truth be told, I'm tiring of these kinds of torture fare, where a woman is tied up, bound and gagged, squirming for her life, to be honest, I think this is played out. Maybe, it's not for others, but there just isn't anything that burns inside this horror fan any longer about the horrors of young women trapped in some godforsaken room located in a lunatic's lair, held hostage and due to die some sort of horrifying death. I mean, what else can be accomplished with this premise?
Well, the film presents this pretty, sweet, religious Catholic who goes to college, finding that her roommate is a slob with a foul attitude, the apartment a mess of empty beer bottles, cigarette butts, with recently used bongs and pizza boxes. Looking for a bed, she sees an ad for a babysitter out in the boonies, and decides to check it out..we know, already that this girl is in for a world of hurt, her faith certain to be tested. I asked myself, "Is a girl actually gonna drive out of town into farm country for a babysitting job?"
She meets the family and they all seem decent and perfectly normal, which is normally a sign that they are sinister, all sunny smiles and vibrant personality is sure to mask their true malevolent nature. She's so innocent and pure, her roommate right the opposite. The discomfort in their scenes together is rather amusing the way her roommate behaves, the slutty clothes and lifestyle. Anyway, the movie moves away from them and on the babysitting night where she soon discovers that lil adorable Sam is far more than she could've possibly imagined. A scar faced man, who cuts an ominous figure, could be a dangerous stalker with frightening plans for her(or could be someone else entirely).
I imagine, it is only inevitable, a movie that will come to mind while watching BABYSITTER WANTED is THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, although we actually see a child in this film. In both instances, an attractive, pleasant young woman, who isn't a trust baby with an endless bank account to pull monetary funds from, must accept a babysitting job seemingly all alone in a house off the beaten track who will find herself against an evil she couldn't have possibly prepared for.
In BABYSITTER WANTED, the farmhouse is being renovated, and provides the movie extra chances to have creaking sounds and unnerving noises. Like THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, there's something off about the house, an unease that exists, that permeates. In THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, the excuse for looking through the house was curiosity and boredom, while Angie, in BABYSITTER WANTED has a legitimate reason, to find Sam who has come up missing, she presumes it's a game of hide and seek or something. Angie has already been spooked due to the feeling that she is being followed. Receiving odd phone calls at the farmhouse, we wonder just when the creepy man will make his presence known.
The filmmakers implement a ton of loud music cues, it all gets a bit aggravating/grating after a while..I believe that if those who made this film just had more faith in themselves, the less is more approach could've worked instead of pummelling us with loud bangs to make us jump(and, in all honesty, most of these cues rarely work).
Cute, quiet Sam seems like the perfect kid to babysit, but soon the "demon" comes out of him and Angie is in for a rude awakening. A premise consisting of a strange man continually calling and lurking around the house, a babysitter all alone with a kid somewhere off hiding, out in the middle of nowhere, and all those foreboding sounds Angie keeps hearing, it works in an old school way. .I can see why this film was an underground hit, it's reputation preceding itself. As a horror fanatic, I look for anything that might seem buzzworthy.
We assume that the man who rattles the knob and kicks open the door will be after Angie, but I must credit BABYSITTER WANTED for mixing things up a bit. BABYSITTER WANTED is similar to THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL in that there's a family with dark secrets, a couple leave for what appeared to me a night out alone absent child with a more macabre reason for getting away, and the heroine who must evade certain death.
Good, clean girls, a hammer to the skull, a human body hung on meat hooks, and the knowledge that cannibalism is associated with all just mentioned adds to the twisted plot eventually. We have entered into the plot as it had been going on, so our heroine is here to supposedly put an end to it..someone was bound, sooner or later, to disrupt what has been a successful killing spree.
Oh, and the filmmakers couldn't help themselves and we get a chance to see the killer's grisly handiwork of slaughtering a body for the meat to be stored, this is liable to be a bit too over the top for some viewers I imagine. And, there's a decision made to not act when you have an opportunity to halt evil for good, passing up on a chance to rid the world of anymore human suffering and bloodshed, yet walks away(the use of shovel, we must acknowledge will just not be enough(this is a horror film after all)..it's this way, if we think about it, just so that the filmmakers could have that twist at the end.
Sarah Thompson's face was familiar to me and I put two and two together remembering her from a show my wife loved, 7th Heaven. I like her. Her innocence works because when she kills in BABYSITTER WANTED you know Sarah's character has no choice..live or die, survival of the fittest. Matt Dallas seemed also familiar to me and I recognized him from a show called Kyle XY. He is considerate and sweet to Sarah's Angie, under the hood of her car, repairing it after it wouldn't start(a key to the movie as in others of it's ilk is that Sarah has no vehicle of hers to escape it seems). Bruce Thomas and Kristen Dalton seem like the wholesome, easy to like family, which could fit into any suburb or rural town, and that is the reason their true selves once revealed to us works as it does..although, I imagine most wary viewers will know right away something's not quite right, because they are "too nice", too polite and easily approachable. I'll be honest, the casting of Bill Moseley was for his name in the credits. He's a chief of police Angie needs at a time of crisis. That's pretty much his role. At least, he's not a psycho this go-around and shows he can play a normal person(which I figure will disappoint those who love the roles where he portrays sadistic wackos and batshit crazy lunatics).
I won't lie, at the opening of BABYSITTER WANTED, I was thinking, "Oh no, not another torture movie." Truth be told, I'm tiring of these kinds of torture fare, where a woman is tied up, bound and gagged, squirming for her life, to be honest, I think this is played out. Maybe, it's not for others, but there just isn't anything that burns inside this horror fan any longer about the horrors of young women trapped in some godforsaken room located in a lunatic's lair, held hostage and due to die some sort of horrifying death. I mean, what else can be accomplished with this premise?
Well, the film presents this pretty, sweet, religious Catholic who goes to college, finding that her roommate is a slob with a foul attitude, the apartment a mess of empty beer bottles, cigarette butts, with recently used bongs and pizza boxes. Looking for a bed, she sees an ad for a babysitter out in the boonies, and decides to check it out..we know, already that this girl is in for a world of hurt, her faith certain to be tested. I asked myself, "Is a girl actually gonna drive out of town into farm country for a babysitting job?"
She meets the family and they all seem decent and perfectly normal, which is normally a sign that they are sinister, all sunny smiles and vibrant personality is sure to mask their true malevolent nature. She's so innocent and pure, her roommate right the opposite. The discomfort in their scenes together is rather amusing the way her roommate behaves, the slutty clothes and lifestyle. Anyway, the movie moves away from them and on the babysitting night where she soon discovers that lil adorable Sam is far more than she could've possibly imagined. A scar faced man, who cuts an ominous figure, could be a dangerous stalker with frightening plans for her(or could be someone else entirely).
I imagine, it is only inevitable, a movie that will come to mind while watching BABYSITTER WANTED is THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, although we actually see a child in this film. In both instances, an attractive, pleasant young woman, who isn't a trust baby with an endless bank account to pull monetary funds from, must accept a babysitting job seemingly all alone in a house off the beaten track who will find herself against an evil she couldn't have possibly prepared for.
In BABYSITTER WANTED, the farmhouse is being renovated, and provides the movie extra chances to have creaking sounds and unnerving noises. Like THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, there's something off about the house, an unease that exists, that permeates. In THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, the excuse for looking through the house was curiosity and boredom, while Angie, in BABYSITTER WANTED has a legitimate reason, to find Sam who has come up missing, she presumes it's a game of hide and seek or something. Angie has already been spooked due to the feeling that she is being followed. Receiving odd phone calls at the farmhouse, we wonder just when the creepy man will make his presence known.
The filmmakers implement a ton of loud music cues, it all gets a bit aggravating/grating after a while..I believe that if those who made this film just had more faith in themselves, the less is more approach could've worked instead of pummelling us with loud bangs to make us jump(and, in all honesty, most of these cues rarely work).
Cute, quiet Sam seems like the perfect kid to babysit, but soon the "demon" comes out of him and Angie is in for a rude awakening. A premise consisting of a strange man continually calling and lurking around the house, a babysitter all alone with a kid somewhere off hiding, out in the middle of nowhere, and all those foreboding sounds Angie keeps hearing, it works in an old school way. .I can see why this film was an underground hit, it's reputation preceding itself. As a horror fanatic, I look for anything that might seem buzzworthy.
We assume that the man who rattles the knob and kicks open the door will be after Angie, but I must credit BABYSITTER WANTED for mixing things up a bit. BABYSITTER WANTED is similar to THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL in that there's a family with dark secrets, a couple leave for what appeared to me a night out alone absent child with a more macabre reason for getting away, and the heroine who must evade certain death.
Good, clean girls, a hammer to the skull, a human body hung on meat hooks, and the knowledge that cannibalism is associated with all just mentioned adds to the twisted plot eventually. We have entered into the plot as it had been going on, so our heroine is here to supposedly put an end to it..someone was bound, sooner or later, to disrupt what has been a successful killing spree.
Oh, and the filmmakers couldn't help themselves and we get a chance to see the killer's grisly handiwork of slaughtering a body for the meat to be stored, this is liable to be a bit too over the top for some viewers I imagine. And, there's a decision made to not act when you have an opportunity to halt evil for good, passing up on a chance to rid the world of anymore human suffering and bloodshed, yet walks away(the use of shovel, we must acknowledge will just not be enough(this is a horror film after all)..it's this way, if we think about it, just so that the filmmakers could have that twist at the end.
Sarah Thompson's face was familiar to me and I put two and two together remembering her from a show my wife loved, 7th Heaven. I like her. Her innocence works because when she kills in BABYSITTER WANTED you know Sarah's character has no choice..live or die, survival of the fittest. Matt Dallas seemed also familiar to me and I recognized him from a show called Kyle XY. He is considerate and sweet to Sarah's Angie, under the hood of her car, repairing it after it wouldn't start(a key to the movie as in others of it's ilk is that Sarah has no vehicle of hers to escape it seems). Bruce Thomas and Kristen Dalton seem like the wholesome, easy to like family, which could fit into any suburb or rural town, and that is the reason their true selves once revealed to us works as it does..although, I imagine most wary viewers will know right away something's not quite right, because they are "too nice", too polite and easily approachable. I'll be honest, the casting of Bill Moseley was for his name in the credits. He's a chief of police Angie needs at a time of crisis. That's pretty much his role. At least, he's not a psycho this go-around and shows he can play a normal person(which I figure will disappoint those who love the roles where he portrays sadistic wackos and batshit crazy lunatics).
Comments
Post a Comment