Babysitter Wanted (2007)★★★☆☆

This movie wasn’t bad. I like scary movies about babysitting partly because I used to babysit and partly because they generally aren’t about people making terrible choices when faced with some terrifying antagonist.

This is mostly true of Angie the babysitter here, and Sarah Thompson delivers the role nicely. The supporting cast is full of good actors who also deliver here, including the young Kai Caster as Sam. 

However, I could have done without the background score. There were too many crescendos at weird times and I didn’t feel the movie had earned most of the scares it was trying to convey with music. I think they figured out what they wanted to do with the score towards the end of the film though, because there were some scenes with a heartbeat sound effect that were really well done.

Also, am I the only babysitter who never really went through anyone’s fridge or used their dishes? I always stuck to things that were either already open and didn’t require utensils or a container, or single-use packages. And I never talked to myself quite as much as Angie does whenever she’s alone.

The pacing was fine, although I’m not sure why they did the back and forth jump cuts in the last few minutes of the film. Also, while the opening scene of the movie is reasonably scary and sets a good tone for the film, they made a weird choice for both the song playing during the opening credits and the font used for those credits.

The film somehow gets really gory towards the end but finishes off rather tamely. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but it’s worth a watch if you like watching young women fleeing for their lives.