Babysitter Wanted

First published June 2009

Director: Jonas Barnes & Michael Manasseri (2008)

Starring: Sarah Thompson, Matt Dallas, Bill Moseley

Find it online: IMDB

Not actually half as awful – or even as unoriginal - as its recycled cover art might suggest, Babysitter Wanted is a rare example of STD movie making done well.

Deja vu, anyone?

Taking its cues from that familiar urban legend – y’know, the one with the babysitter receiving prank phone calls from inside the house - Babysitter Wanted starts off as one thing, and ends up being something completely different. Strangely enough, this weathered horror fan wasn’t at all bored, and (as he often tends to do during STD productions) didn’t fast-forward through a single scene.

College student Angie (a cute Sarah Thompson) is hired by a seemingly average, All-American family to babysit their precocious, stupid-cowboy-hat-wearing kid for the night. As you’d expect, no sooner do the parents clear off, than Angie is receiving disturbing phone calls and hearing things go bump in the night. Just as her stalker decides to attack, the film goes crazy insane.

Roll over for spoilers: Angie’s attacker is a priest, and the child is the son of the Devil. Complete with fucking horns. I shit thee not - the kid is quite literally Hellboy.

With a twist reminiscent of the also-not-shit The Hamiltons, Babysitter Wanted really is worth a viewing or two. Bill Moseley shows up as a surprisingly passive cop, whilst the gore is fun enough to distract from the stupidity of the story’s latter stages. Thompson is nicely cast as Angie, with just enough cutesy about her to keep the viewer rooting for the girl's plight. That said, her character's a Christian, and there's very little that compares with the glorious schadenfreude of watching a goody gumdrops Christian sweetheart (the character's surname is Allbright) being cruelly tormented and stuff. Babysitter Wanted, then, is the modern equivalent of Julius Caesar feeding Christians to lions.

Elsewhere, the acting is passable but largely unexceptional. The story, whilst impressively left-field, may be a touch too looney for some viewers. Your friendly neighbourhood reviewer enjoyed it, but then he does have terrible taste in movies.

So if cheesy, slightly above-average horror flicks rock your boat, you could do much worse than Babysitter Wanted.