A Babysitter's Guide
to Monster Hunting
Director: Rachek Talalay
Year: 2020
Rating:
6.0
The
best babysitter movie of all time is of course Adventures in Babysitting
in which I developed a lifetime crush on Elizabeth Shue. At the time the
woman I was going out with looked very much like her. And of course, I blew
it. I should watch that again. Anyways, this follows much the same path -
a babysitter has to have her charge back by a certain time when the parents
return and lots of crazy things happen. In this case though they add monsters
to the formula. This is based on a trilogy of books for young adults or is
it older teenagers. The film mines the same market. So what am I doing watching
a film for teenagers. Well, in another dimension I was once one and after
seeing a few episodes of Wednesday I was in the mood for more of the same.
A mix of horror, fantasy and humor. There is a ton of this sort of thing
out there - I was under the impression that kids didn't even read any more.
I think Harry Potter unleashed this.
This is good fun and fairly imaginative.
A few scenes would have scared the hell out of me when I was a young-un.
The Shadow Monster in particular. But kids are tougher these days I hear.
Kelly (Tamara Smart) is mockingly called Monster Girl by the students at
her school because she claims that when she was five years-old monsters came
out of her closets at night and tried to grab her. She is also a math genius
and solves a complex math problem in her head. This will come in handy later
on. She gets stuck having to babysit the son of her mother's boss. Jacob
(Ivan Ho) a cute child who can't sleep at night because he is terrified of
his nightmares. And monsters. We all had monsters in our bedroom at night.
In the closet and under our beds. He has real ones - three small troll like
creatures (clearly made with marketing in mind) along with the Grand Guignol
(Tom Fenton) kidnap the child for nefarious reasons. To use his nightmares
to create real monsters to take over the world.
Kelly goes running after them and finds
Liz (Oona Laurence) outside on her motorcycle who already knows what happened.
How? She is part of a worldwide organization that protects children from
monsters - called the Order of the Babysitters. They are all teenagers and
even have a Q like person who comes up with cool gadgets to fight against
the monsters. It is frantic and charming with good performances from a bunch
of young actors. It sets itself up for a sequel but that has yet to happen
and our actors are getting older. It is directed by Rachel Talalay who has
a solid record of directing fantasy - 8 episode of Dr. Who, 5 of The Flash,
Freddie's Dead: The Final Nightmare and Tank Girl.
