Josie Jane: Kill the Babysitter

I came to a crossroads the other night. Do I head to bed, or do I find a short run time movie? In hindsight, I should have went to bed. Instead I watched The Babysitter Must Die.....well mostly. It was free and only ran for 76 minutes. If we're completely honest, I did sleep through a chunk of this. I got enough from what I saw to formulate an opinion on this movie....and actually, I probably knew before I selected this flick what I was in for.

The Babysitter Must Die has a few major problems. The first is that the creators missed their mark on the tone of this movie. I don't mind that the movie uses the tone that it did, but it really wasn't set up for the audience that way. The title throws us off first. Then the character build of the babysitter misleads us again. Yet again, we're misdirected by some freeze frame exposition about the babysitter's skillset. This is set up to be a movie, perhaps in the vein of Scott Pilgrim or Kill Bill. You know, a movie with some tongue in cheek dialogue and maybe some dark comedy. It doesn't do this.....at all.

Another problem is the cultits, if you can really call them that. They bring no sense of dread to the movie. Sure they kill of few people in cold blood, but they come off more like regular people we might encounter at the supermarket than they do as servants of the devil. There's a movie called You're Next that I think this movie wanted to be. The antagonists in You're Next were just hired thugs in animal masks, but masks or not, they brought a sense of dread upon first arrival. The cultists in TBMD never hit the mark with this major characteristic.

Another smaller problem is with the lead actress. She really didn't have the charisma to get the audience on board. She was clearly too old to be playing this role, but she also just didn't have the "it" factor. She didn't need to be a stone cold fox for this to work....she wasn't. But something just felt off with her. Really, the only character that did work in this movie was the little girl being babysat.

The Babysitter Must Die is just another movie in a long list of bad movies that is part of a bigger problem of the oversaturation of the streaming industry that we are experiencing right now. These streaming platforms either fill their libraries with B and C level garbage or worse yet, they promote their "original content". I'm not sure which catagory TBMD lands in, but either way it is a cut rate movie that will be seen by more people than it deserves. There are too many ways for movies to be made or picked up for production or to be broadcast to a wide audience. And coupled with the amount of people in the world now who have ready access and time to view these vacuous libraries, more and more of this second and third tier product will be made.

Netflix hit the jackpot with Stranger Things. That was a pretty early on "original content" win. Then Netflix went back for more....and more. Then the other platforms jumped into the game. Pretty much all of it failing horribly, but people watch this stuff, so everyone thinks these are high quality productions. These platforms need to learn their place. They aren't creators. They're messengers. Bring the content, don't make it. You're no good at it.

Initially I was lured in to watching the 2020 movie "Josie Jane: Kill the Babysitter" given the movie's cover, and the fact that this was a movie that I hadn't already seen.

First of all, let me just say that the movie's cover is actually not really a suitable representation of the actual movie or its contents. I was expecting more of a horror comedy from this cover, but the movie was a straight thriller, for better or worse.

The storyline told in "Josie Jane: Kill the Babysitter" was actually adequately written, and writers Julie Auerbach, Kohl Glass and Kevin Tavolaro were definitely on to something here. But at the same time, then "Josie Jane: Kill the Babysitter" just ultimately ended up as another run-of-the-mill-trapped-in-the-house-alone-against-multiple-homicidal-psychopaths. So effectively then "Josie Jane: Kill the Babysitter" didn't really manage to stand out on its own.

The acting in the movie was adequate, taking into consideration the genre and the script. There weren't any particular stellar performances here though, in my opinion. That being said, don't mistake it for me saying that the actors and actresses weren't doing good jobs, because they were. But they just had the script and the characters working against their performances.

There wasn't much of any particular thrills or excitement to be had in "Josie Jane: Kill the Babysitter", and everything seemed to be running on auto-pilot with director Kohl Glass just leaning back in the director's seat for the ride.

While I managed to sit through the entire course of the movie, I was only mildly entertained by what transpired on the screen. "Josie Jane: Kill the Babysitter" was not an outstanding or memorable movie.

I am rating "Josie Jane: Kill the Babysitter" a mediocre five out of ten stars.

Im a sucker for a babysitter horror movie so this was right up my alley. Thought the villains and horror aspect were nothing new but thought the main character was a blast. Riley Scott playing Josie Jane made this movie worth watching and brought something new to a final girl. Her humor was great and I still believed that she could be taking down each villain. The Girl Scout and badge aspect was fun. Scott made the transition from the Girl Scout to final girl super believable too. Was hoping she'd get an even bigger fight in the end to show off more skills because her potential seems endless. Set up for a sequel so definitely hoping it gets made and that Josie gets to go HAM.

Characterization needed a lot of massaging - it's not enough to say "cultists" and make them weird crazy people when we have to watch them for the next hour. There's only three of them so I should know why every one of them is willing to die for this cult or why they want out. If we don't need to know them that well, we also don't need them onscreen for 75% of the film.

Riley Scott and the character Josie are terrific: Scott has the cocky humor when it's in the script so she should get more of an opportunity to use it. There's enough of an underdog hero aesthetic and an amusing basis for her to have a near-superpower set of abilities but ultimately, she's underutilized. The setup is basically a Lovecraftian take on Die Hard so we kinda needed a lot more of that. It's cultists and a rich guy's house not Nakatomi Plaza, so we could have totally been treated to some really brutal "Home Alone" shenanigans but ultimately there just wasn't enough to work with.

Fight scenes are pretty good, the acting was decent - would have probably been a lot better if there was more to work with on the page. The premise is solid but it felt like they rushed the script.

I'd watch a sequel if they wanted to really go with it. More numerous cultists, or really eff a handful of them up by the end, Harry and Marv style, and play it for laughs. This felt too timid to be as good as it could have been. Funnier, bloodier, creepier... something.

This movie is pretty bad all around. Acting is really weak. But the most ridiculous thing is trying to pass off Sadie and Josie as being even close to the same age. Josie gotta be in her 30s. Pigtails don't cut someone's age in half, yo.