Bruce Richards

Spoilers included. There's a current of yearning and tenderness underlying The Babysitter that gives it a surprising depth for a teen gore-medy, helped by a lead cast thoroughly committed to their roles. Secondary roles fulfill their function as colourful disposables, but Allison's delight at Cole trying to free himself, and Max's concern that Cole man up added unexpected dimensions to the characters. The dynamic between Bee and Cole was worthy of a more serious film and let a lot of the OTT bloodshed slip past my defenses. Cole's sense of betrayal underlies the splatterfest chase of the second half, and there was real poignancy in the climax: there was love between Bee and Cole but one had to kill the other. As teen slasher films go, I wouldn't be surprised if The Babysitter became a perennial; it has its flaws but there's an emotional quality to it that, rarely for the genre, made me actually care about the protagonists.