The only spoilers this review will contain are those revealed in the trailer for the first movie.
A while back, my wife and I were looking for a light movie to watch while drinking. We stumbled upon The Babysitter on Netflix, and figured that it was probably exactly what we were looking for: a dumb horror-comedy best enjoyed while less-than-sober.
And we were mostly right.
The Babysitter was, in fact, a dumb horror-comedy that didn’t say anything. It only subverted one major horror-comedy trope, and didn’t include any kind of social commentary; it was just 85 minutes of laughs, jump scares, and gore. It brought nothing new to the genre.
But what we didn’t anticipate was that we would have enjoyed it just as much sober. Because this movie is good.
The premise of this movie is that Cole, a freshman in high school, is afraid of pretty much everything. His parents are going away overnight for some ‘hotel therapy’, and he is being left at home with his amazing babysitter, Bee.
Cole is goaded by his best friend, Melanie, to stay up after his bedtime to see if Bee sneaks any boys into the house. Instead of catching Bee having sex, Cole instead finds a whole group of young people who have made some sort of deal with the Devil. A deal that requires blood. Cole’s blood.
Cole must survive the night everyone else in the house comes after him. Hijinks ensue.
This movie was a study in set-up/pay-off. Nearly every single plot point in the entire second half of the movie is set up in the first half. It is Chekhov’s Gun taken deeply to heart.
Additionally, the kid (Judah Lewis) who plays Cole, the protagonist, and the actress (Samara Weaving) who plays Bee, the eponymous babysitter, bring their all to their roles, and the rest of the cast, despite filling the roles of stock trope characters brought them to life with gusto.
I can confidently say that, if you enjoy horror-comedy, The Babysitter is worth a watch. Or even if horror-comedy isn’t usually your thing, but you’ve seen some you’ve enjoyed, it is worth a watch.
Then, we discovered that Netflix was putting out a sequel:
The Babysitter: Killer Queen
So, on this past Friday night, my wife and I rewatched The Babysitter, and it was just as good as we remembered it being.
Then, on Saturday, we watched Killer Queen.
Killer Queen brought the band back together: same director, same actors… but not the same writer. In fact, Killer Queen had four writers, one of whom was McG, the director, but none of whom were Brian Duffield, the writer of the first movie.
And so, instead of a simple, straightforward, well-executed dumb horror comedy, we get something more ambitious, more complex, and much messier.
Before we go any further in this review, I want to make something clear: I enjoyed watching The Babysitter: Killer Queen. It expanded on the story in the first movie in interesting ways. It had a more interesting plot. It said something by connecting the story to that of Faust. And a lot of the jokes are really funny.
Additionally, Judah Lewis has only improved as an actor since the first movie and is a delight to watch. And Jenna Ortega as Phoebe brings a lot to this movie as well.
But Killer Queen is definitely the inferior of the two movies.
It does significantly less of the set-up/pay-off that made the first movie so satisfying, and when it does, it frequently gives you a two-second flashback to the set-up as the pay-off is happening, as if to say “‘Member? ‘Member when we set this up before? ‘MEMBERRRRRR?????”
Then there are the weird stylistic scenes that would feel more at home in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World than in this movie, especially since the only majorly stylized choice in the first movie is the occasional freeze-frame on the main character’s face as text appears over the frame to tell us what he is thinking to comedic effect.
We get one where the characters turn on a song, then suddenly they are all in costumes at a dance club dancing to this song. Except this dance club scene isn’t actually part of the story; it’s just there for… I don’t know why.
And one (1) single fight scene in this whole movie is given the Scott Pilgrim-esque, PvP video game treatment, with health bars and fighting abilities and powers that don’t exist anywhere else in the movie. With no explanation. Every other fight? Just a fight. Is there over-the-top horror-comedy coincidence? Absolutely. But no video game gimmicks except for that one scene.
In addition to these issues, there are other, more general problems. It isn’t as scary the first movie. The pacing meanders more. The dialogue is rather clunky at times. It is 16 minutes longer than the first movie, and you feel those minutes.
But one of the biggest ways that the second movie is a step-down from the first one is the distinct lack of the character of Bee. That character, brought to life so well by Samara Weaving, was a big part of what made the first movie work so well. She was magnetic and terrifying. But Killer Queen focuses on other characters, and suffers for it.
Still, one of the things that Killer Queen does best is build on the character of Cole. He is such a wholesome protagonist, and as I said before, Judah Lewis has only gotten better as an actor. If there is a third movie in this franchise, whether or not I see it will largely depend on whether or not Cole is the main character and if he is still played by Judah Lewis.
So, if you watch and enjoy The Babysitter, and you want to see more of these characters, especially the excellent character of Cole, go ahead and check out The Babysitter: Killer Queen. Just be aware that it is a sizable step-down in the quality of the execution.
But if you don’t like The Babysitter, or like it as a self-contained story, and have no desire to spend 100 minutes watching the sequel, you aren’t missing anything unmissable.
Have you seen The Babysitter and/or The Babysitter: Killer Queen?
What did you think?
Let me know in the comments down below!