A Vingança da Babá

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.

I'm rating this movie a 5. I want to give it higher. I really do, because I enjoyed it. It was a good movie. However, there was truthfully so much unrealized potential here, and I think that's what bothered me the most about it. I wanted it to be better. I wanted it to be more. I wanted it to be longer. I wanted the babysitter to kick more butt. I wanted her to be this unstoppable force. Maybe they will make a sequel, and maybe it will be everything that I wanted this movie to be.

Honestly, a little too much unexplained and a little too short - I think the invaders could have been toyed with a bit more in their search for Josie - but mostly just hoping for a sequel that will help flesh out the backstory further. A lot of the dialogue hints at something bigger.

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.

Look, this might have been able to get 4 stars from me had the "babysitter" been 12 or 13 years old. However, watching a 20 year old running around in pig tails, talking about summer camp and merritt badges got real lame, real fast.

I say pass.