THE BABYSITTER. “Home Alone” for Adults

When producer Moustapha Akkad received the script for the original Halloween, what interested him was not Michael Myers, but the babysitter in the victim role, as it was a character almost every young American could relate to. However, over the years, the roles have reversed, and in 2017, the babysitter is the perpetrator.

If you’ve already forgotten why you dislike McG so much – the creator of the 2000 Charlie’s Angels remake and Terminator: Salvation – the first minutes of The Babysitter will remind you of everything. Like many who started with directing music videos, Joseph McGinty Nichol, aka McG, never freed himself from the specific mannerisms of creating for the music industry, and it’s very evident in his latest film. The soundtrack, pace, colorful captions taking up half the screen, and obligatory references to pop culture from the first minutes convince the viewer that they are dealing with a cool, youth-oriented film, although it actually resembles a forty-something, balding man in tight pants singing a Miley Cyrus hit at a karaoke party, constantly throwing at the embarrassed teenagers around him, “Guess how old I am,” hoping someone will make him at least a decade younger. This is most evident in the relationship between the main characters, the babysitter Bee and her ward, Cole.

A viewer recalling their own experiences might feel that their coming-of-age process was disturbed and unnatural. I was twelve when I lit my first cigarette, managed to quit that nasty habit within a year, and when my parents were not home, my brother and I poured nail polish remover on matchboxes and set them on fire. Meanwhile, thirteen-year-old Cole still needs a babysitter, which suits him because he can fuel his youthful infatuation, and it suits her because she has a hidden, diabolical plan. However, parents who don’t see the oddity of such a situation can only blame themselves for all the later confusion. You would think that Bee doesn’t care about a kid discovering his first mustache hairs, but McG convinces us of the existence of a great friendship between them. They watch movies together, dance according to their own choreography, splash around in the pool, and invent the Intergalactic Team of Champions. They are so sweet that you don’t need sugar in your tea; just place the cup next to the screen. However, when we reach the critical moment, when a persistent thought urges us to stop watching, there is a twist – the romantic comedy transforms into a bloody slasher, and unexpectedly, it’s hard to look away.

It turns out that McG knows the horror genre convention better than anyone could expect, and he manipulates it with great skill, intentionally exaggerating genre clichés, making the first act of the film less annoying than it initially seemed. Only from this perspective can you see that the director had everything under control from the beginning. It’s not, of course, as masterful as Wes Craven’s Scream or Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, but it provides many playful thrills.

Ultimately, what allows us to get into Brian Duffield’s script is the relationship between the main characters, which initially seemed unequivocally poorly executed. Cole and Bee love and hate each other in a way that seems extremely unrealistic, but that’s apparently what the creators intended. Even in the final, painfully “dramatic” scene, on the one hand, you can feel pure kitsch, on the other, it’s hard not to be moved. The Babysitter is an important addition to McG’s repertoire but also to Duffield, previously known for co-writing the script for Insurgent – a dreadful Hollywood flop. The gentlemen prove that when they put in effort and have creative freedom, they can create an enjoyable, entertaining, and not dumb film. In conclusion, a warning – the trailer contains spoilers that can spoil the viewing experience. Watch at your own risk.