Babysitter Massacre

I have mixed feelings. For one thing, it goes back to the old fashioned slasher movies, with some updates. Adds more nudity than would have been allowed in the late 1970's-early 1980's, adds a twist with the posting of pictures, but allows the actors to do really dumb things. In some ways, that is infuriating as it degrades the women making them weak. The idea that women have not progressed in over a decade is insulting. It is Halloween, and seven years since there was a terrible murder and it seems the father still hasn't been able to move on from the loss of his daughter. And this strange man with a white bag (pantyhose?) over his head is certainly busy killing off young women. But those at risk, when they have the chance, don't seem to know about 911. So yes, the movie is populated with attractive young actors with lots of nudity, but the story is stuck in the 1980's. So either set the movie in the 1980's, or update the skill set of the victims. They still may not survive, but they might do things differently. The acting is decent for the roles as written.

It's Halloween and some guy is kidnapping babysitters, torturing them, and killing them. He sends pictures of the dead to Erin who thinks they're pictures of Halloween costumes. Years ago Erin and these girls formed a babysitters club. One Halloween night two of them went home and one of them never came back. The surviving girl is traumatized and thinks she sees the killer everywhere, she's now some tough punk chick. Erin is friends with a kind old guy neighbor who's retired and a widower.

This Halloween, Erin's mom leaves for a party and Erin invites three friends for a slumber party. They play the Ouija board to see if they can communicate with the dead girl and find out who her killer is. Punk chick leaves in disgust. It's not long before the killer makes it into Erin's house and takes the three remaining girls. But this time he has a sick proposition for the three. One of them is bound to a chair and if the other two don't kill her he will kill them all. At this point, punk chick returns because she's worried. The identity of the killer is revealed and the reasons for the killings as well.

Babysitter Massacre is a surprisingly strong movie. If you've watched Alternative Cinema's other offerings you know to expect a low budget movie, uneven acting, troublesome sound and poor cinematography. As I was watching the previews I worried as some of them look just like the movies by AC from 10 years ago. But this one is good. Writer/director Cuoto always had potential. His previous work always was a step beyond others of its kind. And I'm glad as years have gone byy the quality of his work has steadily progressed. Babysitter Massacres looks good, has good audio, and good acting for the most part. Not only that but it has a good story and some developed characters. Many filmmakers claim to be horror fans but they give us nothing but sanitized formulaic horror movies. Babysitter Massacre is done in the spirit of the 80s/90s "The ______ Massacre" movies. It has gore, violence, nudity, characters to root for, a striking death scene.

Of course this movie as C horror movie has weaknesses too. Some are expected for the budget and filming conditions. You can always ask for better image/lighting/audio, acting, sets, effects, and so on with these movies. Perhaps more surprising is how short this movie is. Too short. It would have helped to tell us more about the early victims. We only learn about the first one and a bit about another one as well. But the other scenes are just some random girl that's grabbed and put on the victim's chair. The punk chick is a bit to mean and tough, they could have defined her role as the heroine a bit more. Overall a success of a movie and I hope there will be sequels.

There are many of these "massacre" homage to 1980's slasher films and instantly we know just about what to expect. Considering this is a lower budget independent film, we know the picture quality isn't to be the greatest, the acting would be relatively amateurish, the gore would be either excessive and cheap looking and the tone which is meant to be menacing doesn't come off that way.

Of course as seen with these type of films, the director, writers make sure to include an abundance of "unnecessary" scenes of nudity (the typical brief shower scenes, the undressing scenes, casual rape torture scenes, and more). Essentially all the main women strip for at least a scene.

Overall it's simply a film with little creativity and originality. We have seen these premises done before and done better. Also the film isn't funny and very standard generic. No jump scares, no tension, so real surprises.

Then the twist of the villain reveal was extremely predictable which was meant to be a shocking reveal, simply wasn't. Not much was explained as to how the villain was able to go to each house with no one noticing and why they were killing off these random women. We didn't get to know for these characters so there wasn't any real sympathetic feeling once they got killed. Also very tame looking kills.

You already know if you will like it or not based off the title and trailer. No smoke and mirror show here, this is a straight up slasher movie. In this day and age where anyone with a camera phone can make a movie it is hard to create something on a budget that can truly affect the viewer. Watching this flick, I had the same feeling I had as a kid when renting a big box VHS purely off the title and cover alone. They were always a gamble and usually always a disappointment. Babysitter Massacre is everything I love about slashers...furthermore it is the best slasher movie since the Orphan Killer. Will be watching the director and his works from here on to see what kind of treat he delivers next.

This movie is exactly what it says on the tin, so to speak. Babysitters do indeed get massacred in this welcome throwback to the glory (gory) days of the slasher films of the '80s to early nineties.

Angela (Erin Ryan) plans a Halloween party hoping to bring her friends closer together, who drifted apart after a childhood trauma. Unbeknownst to her, there's a masked killer running around murdering.... Babysitters. Who will survive? Who is this masked maniac? Far be it from me to spoil the fun. Just watch it if you love the horror of the 1980s.

Eye Candy: Pretty much all the main actresses show skin and then some