I've been actively tracking this down for a while. Since I first heard about it, I really wanted to see it. Not enough to put it in my Netflix DVD queue, but the second I found it on a streaming service, I was going to watch it immediately. True to my word, as soon as I knew this was on HBO, I watched it that night.
A lot of good horror movie ideas are funny when you first hear about them. An evil clown kills children. A girl in a V/H/S tape kills people. A guys with 20 personalities kidnaps people. They all sound pretty silly. Evil babysitter is another one. What can make them effective is adding menace to something that shouldn't be scary. Emelie is a nice inversion of horror tropes. I mean, has anyone been more victimized in slasher movies than the babysitter? There's a lot of potential in featuring someone unassuming, like a teenage girl, using her position of power to terrorize people (children) who don't know any better. There's versions of this idea that could be unsettling to the point of being unwatchable.
As it turns out, the anticipation wasn't really warranted. Most of my qualms are with Emelie's motivation. I get why she is impersonating the real babysitter. I get that she's not right in the head. The stuff with the hamster and the sex tape feel gratuitous though. I get why you'd want them in a horror or thriller movie. They are quite unsettling. I just don't see how they fit in Emelie's larger plan. The movie is inconsistent about how organized she is. She's savvy enough to kidnap the real babysitter and fool the parents, but then unhinged enough to waste time mentally torturing these kids.
Sarah Bolger is quite good in the role. She's an actress I feel like I've seen in a lot more than I actually have. I've only seen her in The Lazarus Effect, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and The Tudors, although I don't remember her in that last one. She has a nice look for this: both youthful enough to pass for a teenager and stern enough to be intimidating. The rest of the cast was less successful. I don't think anyone was bad. The kids were average child performers. Cutting to the parents felt like filler.
I like that the movie is under 90 minutes, because even that was padded. I also appreciate how it doesn't try to answer everything. We get only as much as we need. I am baffled by the decision at the end to leave it open ended. What's the thinking behind that? Do they think there's several installments baked into this idea? Bolger is fine in the role, but she's not a multi-film menace. Are they really overflowing with bad babysitter ideas? And if they want to leave it open ended for open-ended's sake, go for the gut, Have her actually take the kid or something. Give me a nice twist maybe, like the dad was in on it the whole time. As is, it felt like they didn't know what to do with the end, so they didn't write an ending.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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