"Things get messy when you make a Deal with the Devil."
— Bee
The Babysitter is a 2017 American teen Horror Comedy film directed by McG and written by Brian Duffield. The film stars Samara Weaving, Judah Lewis, Hana Mae Lee, Robbie Amell, Andrew Bachelor, Bella Thorne, and Emily Alyn Lind.
It tells the story of a twelve-year-old boy named Cole Johnson (Lewis) who is constantly bullied, but is very good friends with his hot babysitter Bee (Weaving). One night, while his parents are away in a hotel, Cole stays up to see what Bee does after his bedtime... which turns out to be Human Sacrifice. From then on, it’s a battle for survival between Cole and the cultists. The movie's comedic elements are very strong, to the point that it might be considered a parody of the genre.
It was released by Netflix on October 13, 2017. Not to be confused with the 1980 Made-for-TV Movie of the same name starring Patty Duke and William Shatner, or the 1995 Direct to Video drama-thriller film starring Alicia Silverstone.
A sequel, The Babysitter: Killer Queen was released on September 10, 2020 on Netflix.
This film provides examples of:
- Adrenaline Makeover: Cole starts the movie as a nerdy kid with glasses and a dress shirt. By the end of the movie, he's ditched the glasses and dresses casually in a T-shirt and jeans.
- Affably Evil: Max is an Ax-Crazy murderer who admits he's only involved in the cult because he wants to kill people, but takes time out of his attempts at killing Cole to sincerely compliment his guts and resourcefulness, offers him a headstart, gives him genuine advice about standing up for himself, and tries to give him an "honorable death". Also Bee who, for all the sacrificing humans to Satan and stealing Cole's blood part, seems to actually care about Cole and is a pretty awesome babysitter.
- Armor-Piercing Question:Cole: I'm not the first kid, am I?Bee, taken aback: ... No.
- Artistic License – Law Enforcement: After the cultists kill the two police officers who responded to Cole's 911 call, there's a protracted scene where Bee (who knows that Cole is familiar with police radio codes) is telling Cole to give them the correct code to give to the dispatcher so that the alarm isn't raised. She knows he's lying when he gives her the wrong code, so eventually he gives her the correct code. The problem is, for the entire scene dispatch is continually asking the responding officers to give their status. After the second attempt to raise the officers and not getting a response, the dispatcher would have followed procedure and immediately hit the alarms, sending every available unit to the location. After that, no matter what code Bee told Max to give the dispatcher, other units would have arrived to verify the situation. Also, the code Cole gives them is for a 10-7, meal break. After a 911 call about a violent crime, that won't wash. Even if it was a prank call, they could not verify that without talking to the person who made the call. In that case, that person would have been arrested for misuse of the 911 system.
- Awkward Kiss: Despite his crush on Bee, Samuel is still weirded out by the idea of kissing her in front of a group of strangers— all of whom Bee has also just kissed, on a dare— pointing out that he barely knows Bee herself, and it takes a lot of coaxing before he agrees to kiss her.
- Babysitter from Hell: She is a Satanist who kills people and wants to use Cole’s blood in a ritual. Unusual example in that, murderous psychopathy aside, she is actually a pretty awesome babysitter and seems to genuinely care about Cole.
- Betty and Veronica: Both Melanie and Bee are blondes who contrast with each other in terms of their looks, personalities, and their connection to Cole:
- Between the two, Melanie is presented as Cole's cute 12-year old neighbor and his only friend at school, who lives in the house across the street from him. Whereas Bee is Cole's teenaged babysitter, making her the hot 'older woman' he initially has a childhood crush on.
- As the film progresses, Cole soon sees Bee for who she really is: a Satanic cultist and a psychopath who's willing to kill him. This sparks a harrowing ordeal, in which, Cole has to protect himself and Melanie from Bee and her friends, which brings them closer together - advancing their relationship from just friends, to puppy love.
- Big Bad: Bee. She even ends up outright calling herself this.
- Black Dude Dies First: In an unusual variation, the black dude is the first of the killers to die, while none of their innocent victims are black.
- Blood Magic: Apparently the ritual to make a Deal with the Devil requires mixing the blood of a murdered victim and an innocent child and then dripping it onto the pages of a Tome of Eldritch Lore.
- Blown Across the Room: Allison gets shot in the chest by a cop and she positively flies across the living room into a corner.
- Boom, Headshot!: How Allison goes out.
- The Bully: The local bully taunts and physically abuses Cole as well as constantly eggs his house.
- Breast Attack: Allison gets shot in the boob by a cop. She seems more concerned about the fact the bullet disfigured her breast than she is about the fact that she got shot in the chest.
- Cole later disables Allison temporarily during their fight by punching her in the existing gunshot wound. She assumes he just wanted the excuse to touch her breast.
- Car Fu: How Bee seemingly meets her end.
- Chekhov's Classroom: Cole’s Dad gives his son driving lessons despite the kid only being 12 years old. This means that Cole knows how to drive stick so he can use Melanie's dad's car to ram the house.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The butcher knife Cole’s dad takes from him in the first act and puts in the dishwasher. Cole tries to use it during his fight with Allison, but his mother put it back in the knife rack, giving Allison the chance to wield it.
- Melanie's father's car. Cole uses it during the climax of the movie to ram his own house and defeat Bee.
- The remote control car Cole works on in the garage and is later seen left on the landing, and the movie makes a point of showing it is there (with slow camera pans included) three times. John slips on it and falls over the bannister onto a pointy award, killing him. Cole's description of the trick he wants to do with the car is also what he does later with Melanie's dad's car.
- The cellar as well as the spiders and traps down there are combined with the bug spray and the rocket he fired to kill Sonya.
- The treehouse, which Cole is noted to be getting too big for and is in the process of being disassembled. What's left of it collapses under the weight of Max, saving Cole's life. It is also used by Cole to ramp Melanie's dad's car off and land on Bee.
- Chekhov's Skill:
- Bee teaches Cole what to do the next time someone tries to bully him, e.g. fall into the ground so they will trip over him and then kick them in the dick. He does this to Max later in the movie. It doesn't work, because Cole misses Max’s dick.
- Earlier Bee's ability to tell when Cole is lying helps her when he gives her the wrong police code.
- Child Care and Babysitting Stories: The movie is about 12-year-old Cole and his babysitter Bee who protects him from being bullied and becomes friends with him. Although he has a crush on her.
- Deader than Dead: Each of the cultists die in excessively gruesome fashion, ensuring that each of them are indeed dead. The most violent deaths are suffered by John, Allison, and Max (see character sheet for how each one bites it).
- Dwindling Party: In a reversal of the more common slasher-movie dynamic, it's Bee's friends who get fought and killed one at a time over the course of the film, eventually leaving Bee herself as an evil version of a Final Girl.
- The End... Or Is It?: Cole makes it out alive and kills off all of the cult, but the last shot of the film is Bee rising up and killing a fireman investigating the scene.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Max catches Cole in the treehouse by climbing the rope dangling off a nearby branch, then cleans the egg off Cole's face as part of giving him an "honorable" death, and looks down at his hands before moving in for the kill.
- Foot Popping: Done by Melanie near the end of the film, when she gives Cole A Kiss For Luck before his showdown with Bee. The camera cuts away to a close-up of her barefeet just as she pops the heel of her left foot
during the kiss. - Freeze-Frame Bonus: If you pause just after Max falls through the floorboards of Cole's treehouse and the rope snaps taut, you'll see Max's spine poking through the base of his neck. Yikes.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: The long slow motion kissing scene between Bee and Allison arouses most of the guys.
- Groin Attack: Bee advises Cole to do this if he is being chased by bullies (more specifically, to fall down and kick his attacker there if someone tries to chase him), which he later uses against Max.
- High-Pressure Blood: Most injuries in the movie result in fountains of blood spurting all over the place.
- Hollywood Satanism: Bee and her friends are members of a cult trying to make a Deal with the Devil.
- Human Sacrifice: The ritual Bee and her friends are attempting involves sacrificing a guy and mixing his blood with the blood of the innocent and then dripping it on the pages of a particular book.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: Subverted. Cole tries to recreate a scene from Billy Jack by headkicking a bully, but his foot barely makes it to the kid's elbow.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Bee is older than Cole, but they seem to be close friends. Even after Bee shows her true colors she seems to still genuinely care for Cole.
- Job Title
- Made of Iron: Allison gets shot in the chest yet she still lives a bit longer and has enough strength to fight Cole and almost kill him.
- Male Gaze: Cole ogles Bee as she strips down to a bikini and the camera ogles with him.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Since the sacrifice is never completed, there’s no way to know if it would’ve worked in achieving a Deal with the Devil. However, the implication than Cole isn’t the first kid leaves open the possibility that it has worked in the past. The sequel resolves the ambiguity pretty definitively.
- The after credits scene where Bee jump scare's a fireman, seemingly fine, would suggest she was either faking being pinned by the car, or supernaturally tough.
- When Cole finally burns the book containing the Devil's Verses, it burns with an Sickly Green Glow. It's never made clear if this is due to the book being genuinely supernatural, or just so old that the paper and ink contain one or other chemical or impurity that burns with a green flame.
- Noose Catch: This is how Max bows out: falling through the floorboards of Cole's treehouse and getting hanged on the tyre swing.
- Parents as People: Cole's parents have issues which they are trying to work out, and as a result they seem to leave a lot of the work of looking after Cole (such as protecting him from the local bullies) to Bee, but it's clear that they genuinely love their son and each other, and are trying their best.
- Police Are Useless: Initially averted. The cops who answer Cole's call for help are armed with pistols and can tell some real foul play is afoot, but the cultists are able to butcher them with contemptuous ease.
- Redemption Rejection: Cole feels bad for Allison and offers her a second chance. She refuses to take it (still thinking about her breast damage from earlier), and almost kills him.
- Rewatch Bonus: In retrospect, whatever Bee whispered in Jeremy's ear to get him to back off was probably legitimately horrible.
- Shout-Out:
- Cole and Bee mention figures such as Captain Picard and Data, Captain Adama, "Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith", the Predator, Ripley and the Xenomorphs when discussing who they'd bring in their team to beat the Big Bad alien invaders.
- Bee quotes The Godfather Part II during her game of Spin the Bottle, which Cole identifies.
- Bee and Cole watch and quote Billy Jack. Later, Cole tries to recreate a scene while standing up to a bully.
- Cole's father is bingeing Mad Men. Cole spends a night watching it and is unimpressed. He later compares Don Draper to Bee.
- John compares Cole's attempts at self-defense to Home Alone. Right before he slips on a toy car and gets impaled through the neck.
- Sliding Scale of Comedy and Horror: The movie is very firmly on the comedy end of the scale, with the gore being mostly Played for Laughs.
- Targeted Human Sacrifice: The ritual requires the blood of the innocent as an ingredient, which is hard to come by for Bee (although it would appear that the innocent doesn't need to die for the ritual to take effect).
- Taught by Television: Averted. Cole thinks that watching Billy Jack will give him the hapkido moves he needs to defeat a bully. It doesn't.
- Took a Level in Badass: Cole even describes himself as a pussy towards the start of the film, but has conquered most of his fears by the end.
- The Unreveal: The cult's sacrifice is supposed to make the wishes of those involved come true. Aside from Bee (to be strong), Allison (to be a journalist), and Max (he didn't have one, he just wanted to kill people), we never find out Sonya or John's wish. It's implied that John either wishes for fame or he wishes to be a successful musician.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Melanie, Cole's age-appropriate friend. She's the one who inspires Cole to see what Bee does after he goes to bed. Without that little inspiration, Cole would've gone to bed, had a vial of blood taken from him in his sleep, and none of the events of the last half of the movie would've happen.
- In a weird spin of the trope, she ends up being one *for herself:* Cole fighting the cult leads to her discovering its existence and joining it, causing the events of the sequel.
- Villainous Rescue: Bee blows Allison’s head off with a shotgun before she can kill Cole.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Max spends the entirety of the movie’s second half without his shirt, for no discernible reason. It is immediately lampshaded:Cole: Why is he shirtless?John: That’s your first question?
- Your Head A-Splode: Allison's head is blown off by a shotgun blast from Bee.
