Babysitter Wanted

I pick this up on DVD because it was cheap, and judging by the cover and title I thought it was gonna be some cheap "When a Stranger Calls" rip off... Well, it wasn't. I was wrong.

After the introduction of beautiful Angie (Sarah Thompson) who's on her first year of college, movie starts out as your regular "stalk and slash" horror flick. Angie is babysitting since she needs money, and soon as the night falls, she starts receiving weird phone calls, there's strange noise and it seems that man with bad intentions is at the door. To make matters worst, kid she's suppose to watch is acting weird and he's only eating raw flesh... About first 50 minutes of the movie resolves around stalker invading home, but soon movie takes unpredictable twist and turns movie on it's head, into completely new movie. Anyone who tells you "I see that coming" is lying. There's a short reference of what might happen, but you'll never see it coming THAT WAY, trust me.

After "second movie" comes into play, BABYSITTER WANTED doesn't hold on on gore, nasty scenes (involving meat hook... anyone who's familiar with horror movies know that this thing can get nasty on screen) and chase for the rest of the movie. There are few unintentionally funny moments, and one of them is twist. I was shocked, I was laughing and I thought it pays some tribute to the old movies (era '60-'70) Very well directed with nice creepy atmosphere, looks more expensive then it actually is because of the great cinematography, fast-paced and talented cast. I hope horror movies will see more of Sarah in the future.

The only downside of the movie (for my taste) is Angie being too religious and this leads to a bad ending. It looks like director(s) couldn't decide which ending to go for, but the action scenes and the rest of the movie will make you completely forgive the bad ending.

One of the better 2009 horror flicks, specially for being low budget. Not to be missed by any true horror fan that know their stuff.

"Babysitter Wanted" was a nice surprise. I thought 'why not?'when I saw the DVD cover. I was expecting a 'D'- rated flick & got a good twist on the babysitter theme of the 70's/80's.

A first year college student, in need of money, answers a posting for a babysitter out at a farm. All the events, up to her arrival at the farm seemingly follow the 'babysitter theme' viewers are so familiar with. Once she is left alone to do her job, that's when the theme takes a turn. It wasn't what I had expected.

The actress playing college student Angie, lacked credibility, but I overlooked it, as this was schlock. I was creeped out by the child actor. The actor playing the father was a refreshing treat. It's not perfect, but worth a look, for horror's sake.

Babysitter Wanted starts off like pretty much every other babysitter in peril film you've probably already seen: a pretty, virginal high-school student takes a child-minding job in a remote house in the boondocks, where she experiences creepy noises, power outages, and mysterious phone-calls, before eventually being attacked by person or persons unknown. In short, it's about as formulaic as a horror film can get.

If you begin to bemoan this film's predictability, though, you're playing right into the hands of its makers, whose seemingly uninspired set-up exists only to catch the viewer off guard with one hell of a curve-ball halfway through: just as the film couldn't get any more predictable, writer/director Jonas Barnes pulls the metaphorical rug from under his viewers feet with an audacious plot development that has to be seen to be believed.

With his illusion of banality well and truly shattered, Barnes is finally free to explore new territory, but despite the introduction of some welcome black humour, a few well conceived moments of tension and a spot of surprisingly gruesome gore, the film never fully capitalises on its rather bonkers mid-point revelation. If only the madness had escalated exponentially from that point on rather than just kicking up a gear and staying there, I'm sure we'd have had another bona fide horror classic on our hands—after all, nothing succeeds like excess!

To suggest that this is a "rip off" of "When A Stranger Calls is ridiculous. The only reason I can imagine for people to say such a silly thing is that they didn't actually watch the movie beyond the first half hour or so. It's akin to saying Cemetery Gates ripped off Delamorte Dellamore because they're both about cemeteries. Ludicrous! Babysitter Wanted bears no resemblance to WASC or to Black Christmas (the classic 1974 horror movie that 'inspired' WASC in the first place). In fact, its unlike any horror movie I've seen before.

This is a fresh, innovative and surprising movie with a plot you will not see coming. The direction, cinematography, acting, character development, pacing, story, mystery development, action, and final scenes are all top notch and again I find myself baffled by the ratings given to movies on IMDb. They seem to be particularly out of whack in the horror genre for some strange and frustrating reason.

Anyway - the only real fault I can think of here is the music was sometimes too intrusive - but that's probably more a style issue. To me the use of loud crescendos and repetitive loud beats actually detracted from the tension or shock or horror of what was on screen rather than enhancing it. That's not to say the musical score was all bad, some of it was great. It was just something I noticed during some crucial scenes.

This movie deserves a rating of at least 7 and given that they produced such a gem of a killer thriller with buckets of horror and awesome kill scenes etc on a minimal budget it should easily get an 8. One of the best I've seen that's been made in the past few years.

DO yourself a favour and get hold of this beauty! (not for the squeamish tho!!)

This movie starts off with a lot of horror clichés like fake scares, the dark stranger in the shadows, the clean cut innocent girl and the love interest, and for the first 45 minutes it goes along that way until a little twist that you kind of don't see coming. Then the movie changes tact, blood, gore, and cringe worthy scenes which for me save this film from being a less than average 'WHEN A STRANGER CALLS' type movie which I would've given it a 3.5 to a not bad but not good 6 out of 10. It was good to see Bill Moseley playing a normal role for him. So as a result like I said, I give this a 6 out of 10, only because of the plot twist and blood.