THE BABYSITTER (1995) A "Turkey of the Week" film review by Justin Felix Copyright 1998 Justin Felix
Rating: * (out of five)
Written and directed by Guy Ferland Based on a short story by Robert Coover Starring Alicia Silverstone, Jeremy London, J.T. Walsh Rated R (contains violence, profanity, and brief nudity) 90 minutes
Synopsis: A small town thug convinces a dimwitted high-school student to spy on his girlfriend, who is babysitting three unruly kids for their alcoholic parents on a Friday night. While this is going on, the thug, the father, the boyfriend, and a kid reaching the onset of puberty all have fantasies about the babysitter.
Comments: To say this movie is bad would be quite an understatement. I'm not sure what writer and director Ferland was hoping to accomplish with THE BABYSITTER. Suspense? Family drama? Humor? Erotica? Elements of each of these genres exist in the film, yet it fails to successfully achieve any of them. Instead, THE BABYSITTER is a dull, lifeless movie which manages to bore and ultimately irritate its viewers.
I suppose this film could have been watchable if it weren't for the fact that the characters are universally unappealing. Alicia Silverstone is completely wasted playing Jennifer, the babysitter. Her character has absolutely no depth at all, and her sole purpose in the movie is to be the object of the other characters' fantasies. Everyone else in the film seems to be in a competition to see who can stoop to the lowest level by the time the film ends. The parents are alcoholics who become increasingly obnoxious as the movie proceeds. The father (played by J.T. Walsh) fantasizes about the babysitter; the mother fantasizes about her husband's best friend. None of these fantasy sequences, trust me, are things that need to be seen, but we see them anyway, complete with cheesy, make-out saxophone music. The thug, in the meantime, proves that he's evil through his annoying habit of smashing half-empty beer bottles all of a sudden and for no apparent reason. The most absurd character, however, is the babysitter's boyfriend who seems catatonically brain-dead. The thug, in a manipulative, Iago-like manner (though he doesn't really need to try hard), manages to talk the boyfriend into binge-drinking, smoking grass, running away from cops, and playing Peeping Tom on his own girlfriend in a matter of minutes. Incredible! (Of course, the boyfriend's original plan for the evening was, try not to laugh, to sit in an empty diner and read CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger.)
If the goal of THE BABYSITTER was to be suspenseful, then it fails. There are surprisingly few tense moments in this film, and nearly all of them come at the final minute. By that time, however, the audience is so tired of the inane characters that no one truthfully cares what happens to any of them. No suspense occurs in the dream sequences either because every single one of them is obviously a dream sequence from its inception. If the goal of THE BABYSITTER was to be humorous, then it also fails. I found nothing even remotely funny about the boozing parents who seemed, at times, to be played for laughs. If the goal of THE BABYSITTER was to be dramatic, then, once again, it fails. The characters are one-dimensional and uninteresting. Finally, if the goal of THE BABYSITTER was to be titillating (the type of film destined to be played ad infinitum on HBO at 2 in the morning), then it fails as well. The dream sequences aren't erotic; they are too brief and, outside of one very short scene, contain no nudity.
I can't completely trash this movie. The first 10 minutes or so vaguely resemble an interesting film, and the conclusion sports a halfway decent fistfight. The other 79 minutes, though, are a drag. Silverstone's character, at the end of the movie, turns to her boyfriend and asks "what were you thinking?" I asked myself the same question, having spent 99 cents renting this turkey.
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