The Babysitter

Acting and story are tops. The babysitter is an otherworldly-looking, eerie kind of character. The 12-year-old, upon first seeing her, asks, "Are you real?" She looks like she's stepped out of a dream,mesmerizing, hypnotizing. And she works her way into this family of three--mother father daughter--wealthy, living in a large house on the water outside of Seattle, and she wreaks her awful havoc. The story moves along, and your eyes are glued to the screen, as you watch the whole thing work its way to its conclusion. The females in this movie are impressive--that would be the mother, daughter and babysitter. And of course, William Shatner as the father/husband--the ultimate likable good-guy. Skilled movie makers and actors (and writers) put this thing together and they came out with a polished, entertaining product.

This movie was pretty descent. A few times I wasn't sure where it was going, but it always seemed to keep me interested. It kept pulling me back in. I guess that is a way I could put it. I really like how the movie was photographed. It added to the overall mood of it.

My TIVO is programmed to get William Shatner films since he's usually so much fun to watch in action. But he proved relatively restrained in his role.

Frankly, I wasn't expecting much from this film, perhaps a kitschy hour and a half of entertainment.

I've never seen Remingston Steele, so as soon as a young Zimbalist comes on the screen I could no help thinking "wow, who is that?" She is very convincing in the role of an enigmatic housekeeper who works her way into the family of Shatner and Duke-Astin.

The film begins at a slow pace, but has the saving grace of not falling into the typical and predictable TV movie of the week plot.

The acting is very good all around, as well as Zimbalist, Duke-Astin and John Houseman turn in good performances.

I was surprised to see on IMDb after watching the film that it was directed by Peter Medak. I greatly respect Medak for his work in _The Changeling_ (1980), _The Krays_ (1990) and _Romeo is Bleeding_ (1993), all non-mainstream highly-respected (nearly cult) films. It is really surprising that Medak seems to weave between these films and TV sitcoms, movies of the week, and so on. His influence in creating the proper mood is, in retrospect, dominant in the film.

As someone else mentioned, the sound quality is quite bad and it is at times difficult to make out the dialog.

This had potential, and it actually did realize some of it. However, the dialog is hard to hear in places, and the editing is just bizarre, several times jumping from a tense moment straight to another scene without resolving anything.

My biggest objection, though, is more fundamental: for the first two-thirds or so of the movie, the fascinating "babysitter" seems to have some kind of supernatural... something. It's never clarified what, but she seems to be almost mesmerizing people on occasion; at another moment, she is unfazed by a car nearly hitting her, almost as though she is in control of the situation more than the driver is. Then in the last third or so, that "something" seems to vanish and she is just a crazy young woman.

Zimbalist is captivatingly beautiful here and seems game to bring her character to life, and the other players are all fine in their roles. However, the story just doesn't quite make sense in spots and the relationships feel hurky-jerky. A bit more time invested into the writing would have helped, as would a better job on the sound mixing and the editing. Lacking those things, I can only give this a 4, as I ended up just wondering what the point of this was. Still, if you're a fan of stalker/psycho movies, or of Shatner or Zimbalist (or anyone else here), you will probably enjoy this at least a little bit.

Good acting by a solid cast makes this somewhat-familiar material worth slogging through, even though the issues it raises seem to get all fouled up. Patty Duke Astin plays a doctor's wife who has hired a mysterious young woman to care for her rather hapless daughter, which causes friction in their already-shaky household. Quinn Cummings, fresh off her stint on TV's "Family", has a few surprisingly strong scenes standing up to babysitter Stephanie Zimbalist, but Zimbalist's role is a wash-out. Her character isn't given the grand, juicy build-up that villains usually receive in television suspensers, but perhaps this time it was a mistake (director Peter Medak is so overly-cautious letting the pieces fall into place that he becomes unintentionally coy about the whole thing). The film is shrouded in murk; Medak, going for a low-key mood, doesn't allow the drama to take shape, and as a result the story and characters become lethargic blobs.