Babysitter Wanted (2008)


REVIEWER RATING: 
7/10


At first glance of the cover art one would quickly dismiss the flick as just another unoriginal cheesy low-budget straight-to-DVD slasher -- how far from the truth that statement really is. Newcomer Jonas Barnes mashes together a couple sub-genres and brings forth an interesting little overlooked low-budget effort. Babysitter Wanted is a perfect example of how despite small production values, if you have the talent, a good script, and some decent actors, that you can deliver an above-average feature.

The story follows a young religious girl from the country, who moves to the city to attend college. While on the hunt for a job, she spots a flyer for a babysitter on the bulletin board. She calls the number and schedules a date to meet the family, who naturally live in the middle of nowhere. She gets the job and babysits the young boy named "Sam" shortly after. Suspecting that someone has been stalking her the past couple days, she's on edge and being left alone in a secluded farmhouse doesn't help matters.

Her gut feeling proves correct when a scarred individual breaks into the house and is seemingly on some sort of murderous vendetta against her and the boy. Unbeknownst to the young babysitter, the man has a sound reason for attempting to murder the boy, as Sam and his seemingly perfect parents are hiding a dark secret. The film's story isn't the most original; borrowing from a few other genre features I've seen over the years, but the execution and blend of two sub-genres together seemed to work perfect for what the story called for.

It seems that due to budget restraints we weren't able to see much on-screen gore. Much of the "gore" we do see is shown off-screen or thrown into frame. It would have been nice to actually view some gory deaths, but that's me. Aside from Bill Moseley's small role as the town sheriff, Scott Spiegel (Intruder) has a brief cameo as "Dr. Spiegel" and actress Nana Visitor (Pamela Voorhees in the F13 remake) plays the babysitter's mother.

Naturally, the film is not without its faults -- I felt the brief sub-plot involving the babysitter's love interest was hastily edited together and essentially lead nowhere. Also the movie was fairly easily predicted. I predicted certain events would happen far before they were revealed. Despite that, I still liked the flick for its creativity, despite its predictability and it succeeds in some aspects where other big-budgeted features have failed.

A surprisingly good and creative low-budget genre effort. The film successfully blends sub-genres together to give us an interesting little twist on the standard babysitter-slasher. Worth a check if you go in not expecting much, like I did.
OVERALL: 
A surprisingly good and creative low-budget genre effort. The film successfully blends sub-genres together to give us an interesting little twist on the standard babysitter-slasher. Worth a check if you go in not expecting much, like I did.


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