Jailbait Babysitter

I seem to recall renting this film from Music+ about 17 years ago. I suspect I began fast-forwarding at about the ten-minute mark. A few weeks ago I caught a theatrical screening where I was forced to give it my full attention. I remembered little of it from my previous viewing. It is a strange film, full of odd, seemingly miscalculated moments. I really enjoyed it.

Surely the film's title, in the grand exploitation tradition, was tacked on to try to sell a product on the basis of something it doesn't really deliver. There is, technically, a "jailbait babysitter" in the film, but anyone expecting some underage thrills should look elsewhere. There's a bit of nudity to keep the audience from throwing things at the screen, but the story is actually an earnest drama with very little sex. It all plays out rather flatly, as our heroine gets in some trouble and runs away from home, and begins cohabitating with an absurdly benevolent prostitute. What keeps it watchable is not so much interest in the characters as the feeling of having absolutely no idea where, if indeed anywhere, the film is going. Amazing moments like the protagonist stepping in a huge pile of dog excrement, and her later tirade about same, make for unique viewing.

With typical exploitation tactics, the lurid title of this film, is incredibly misleading. A seeming gift for perverts, the concept of what the title offers, is not exactly what you get. This incredibly dull film follows Vicki (Therese Pare), a 17-year-old girl who won't "put out" to her boyfriend. (This is where the title comes into effect.) Vicki is visited by her boyfriend (shortly followed by a gang of drunken friends), and the "partying" begins. This protracted sequence, devoid of dialogue, simply shoots teens dancing inanely around, sometimes resembling home movies, with some dodgy stock "funky" music. One of the teens tries it on with a now dazed Vicki, who fights back and runs out of the home. She is then picked up randomly by Lorraine (Lyndia Wagner), who takes her into her home. She turns out to be a hooker, and unknown to Vicki, tries to teach her in the ways of the night.

This meandering narrative offers nothing but boredom. The pathetic character of Vicki, naive to the point of farce at times, just aggravating at best. There's a reference to My Fair Lady (1964), and attempts to weave this into a section where Vicki is shown acting like an adult, but failing. At times the film also thinks it's funny. So basically this is a tale of a precocious-seeming girl who won't have sex with her boyfriend because she wants to be with more mature people, but learns a lesson whilst trying to fit into that adult world. It just all looks so cheap. It has the same aesthetic as a hard core porn film of the period, that has been copied down on several generations of VHS pirating (or so I've heard!), but without the porn. It has very little nudity or sex either.

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This is the kind of movie that could go only have been made in the 1970's and which I personally can't help but feel a certain affection for (albeit kind of like the affection one might feel for a retarded step-child). Despite the lurid title, it's not all that racy--in fact, any perverts who went to see this back in the day probably walked out bitterly disappointed. There is a "jailbait babysitter"--a seventeen-year-old character named "Vicky", played by an actress who was obviously a few years older than that (she kind of looks like Keira Knightly or a blonde, pre-felon Winona Ryder), but there are only a few brief nude/ sex scenes involving her or the rest of the female cast.

This doesn't really make it as teen movie though either since the characters not only don't act much like normal teenagers, but often don't even act like normal human beings. "Vicky" won't give it up to her nice guy boyfriend, but she has no problem letting her friends have strange toga party/Roman-style orgy in the house where she is babysitting, and later she gets involved with an older woman, who turns out to be a prostitute, and agrees to lose her virginity to a bald middle-aged guy without actually collecting any money! (Maybe this is a concession to the middle-aged perverts in the audience). Her boyfriend meanwhile passes up several opportunities to have sex with comely, naked lasses, and is beaten up by his own friends because he won't host an orgy in his new van, all so can remain loyal to this girl who seems willing to sleep with just about anyone but him! Definitely not normal adolescent behavior. Part of the strangeness also comes from the incredibly low-budget, including a lack of sync sound in many places. The toga scene for instance involves a shower orgy, lots of dancing, much destruction and havoc, the protagonist being felt up by a male guest and hitting said guest with a fire poker, and then the parents coming home and walking in on the whole thing--yet this long sequence is shot entirely without dialogue and with only a single weird 'boogie-woogie" song playing on the soundtrack!

You would probably expect I would pan this movie, right? But I kind of liked it, perhaps because you would never get away with making something like this today, a movie that would horrify the moralists, bore the perverts, and baffle the teenagers (and probably everyone else). It kind of reminded of the contemporary film "Malibu High" which recently got a DVD release as part of the "Grindhouse Collection". This is similarly bizarre, but actually less sordid than that one. Hopefully its lurid title won't scare niche DVD distributors and more adventurous cult-movie viewers away.

Really, for fans of the exploitation movies of the 1970s, this movie may come as something of a disappointment as it's definitely not as trashy and sordid as the title would indicate. It's actually sensitively handled, even comically handled at times, as Vicki (Therese Pare), our 17 year old title character, is in something of a hurry to grow up, even though she's a little put off with her friends' obsession with sex. Eventually, of course, we know that innocence of hers will have to be tested, as among other things, she tries hooking up with a nice older guy named Jerry and, after running away from home, gets looked after by a benevolent prostitute named Lorraine (Lydia Wagner), who's a better maternal figure than one would think, never encouraging her new young acquaintance to emulate her, although Vicki does try. In one extended comedy sequence, Vicki has a day on the town, dining at a fine restaurant and not having a good time of trying to down some Irish whiskey. Meanwhile, her nice guy would-be boyfriend Robert (Roscoe Born) has his own misadventures, including being whipped on the butt with a belt. One thing that this reviewer must agree with is that they truly don't make films quite like this anymore, which is just too bad. Even if this isn't sleazy enough to satisfy some tastes, there is something fascinating about its low, low budget seediness; it's just unfortunate that for a film running 87 minutes there's a fair bit of padding. Still, the film has its moments, such as our heroine stepping in dog excrement. And, just to keep trash lovers from ever getting too bored, there are breast shots here and there to make sure they pay attention. Young Pare is definitely reasonably appealing, which is a big help, as is Born, and Wagner acquits herself well with the older role. Nothing major ever really happens in this thing, but some viewers may not mind too much. It is important to mention that for John Goodman fans hoping to see him in this inauspicious film debut, he's barely in it, and you have to pay close attention - he's in an afro wig at the Halloween costume party. Character actor Michael Pataki, who'd worked with writer / director John Hayes on "Dream No Evil" and "Grave of the Vampire", contributes an uncredited cameo. Five out of 10.

First was aware of this film from a compilation of trailers so I ordered it off ebay...what a riot. It's a drive-in schlock movie with some nudity and sexual situations. The woman who takes in the title babysitter is strange looking yet oddly sexy.