I knew The Babysitters was going to be bad when I sat down to watch it on its opening night in a theater full of no more than twelve people. I knew that The Babysitters was going to be really bad when I happened to notice that the relatively small Canadian film about a babysitting prostitution ring had attracted an audience that was (alarmingly) almost entirely made up of dateless, balding, middle aged men. Though at that point I wasn’t expecting much, I thought perhaps I could still assume the emotional state of one of the creepy guys in the audience and use the movie for some sort of cheep thrill, the kind that only nine dollars can buy. But I wasn’t able to get a red cent’s satisfaction from this film; The Babysitters was a right mess.

Sixteen-year-old Shirley Lyner (Katherine Waterston) is a high school junior who’s being bombarded by SAT prep classes and sex education. Though she’s a math whiz and an ultra dedicated student, Shirley also baby-sits to make some extra cash on the side. When one of her paying parents, Mr. Beltran (John Leguizamo), steals a kiss, Shirley is inspired to begin an affair and make much more money than she would have just reading bed times stories and heating up leftovers. When Mr. Beltran’s friends find out that he’s sacking his sitter, they too want to hire their own babysitting call girls. So Shirley, eager to enterprise, enlists her friends at school to pick up the extra gigs. The babysitting business booms for Shirley until one of her recruits starts a competitive business of her own and Shirley discovers a scary something about what kind of clients her service is actually attracting.

The movie’s poster is provocative enough - a tight teenaged abdomen seductively offset by low-rise jeans and a white t-shirt that sits just below the bust line, en route to making its way completely off its body. Though babysitting prostitution rings should certainly be considered moral abominations, I can’t help but demand that the movie that makes babysitting a real ‘service’ should be well… sexy. If young twenty-something Christina Ricci, or (heck) even younger twenty-something Evan Rachel Wood were to have taken on this role, it would have done The Babysitters at least some glimmer of good. There was obviously enough money in the budget to sign on names like John Leguizamo and Cynthia Nixon, yet relatively unknown and generally very unattractive Katherine Waterston was curiously given the most important role in the film. Even with a different actress, The Babysitter’s character development would still have been extremely slim; its poorly written dialogue would still be dripping with unnecessary drama. But though The Babysitters doesn’t come close to selling its story, a fresh faced, beautiful, interesting leading young lady would have at least maximized the allure of the film’s premise (slutty sitters) which is, in fact, pretty good. Seeing John Leguizamo seduce a gorgeous young girl could have been captivating. Instead, his sex scenes with Waterston (who sported poorly covered up pock marks, a gigantic frame, and very awkward expressions) made me feel just gross.

Other problems with this film: though the third act twist is quasi-exciting, it’s terribly enacted and inconsistent with the rest of the film. It is also horribly unclear who, exactly, Shirley’s character is supposed to be. She’s obviously quite a nerd with her argyle sweaters and she seems friendless throughout the beginning of the film. Then, suddenly, she’s the head madam of all of the cool girls at school. Finally, Shirley is supposed to be ‘saving up for college’ a notion that is inherently ridiculous; who saves for college? College is $100,000 dollars, and with Shirley’s whiz kid skills, she would have been much better off studying for scholarships than organizing weekend orgies with her friends and her town’s soccer dads. Though The Babysitters seems pretty interesting, don’t be fooled; this one’s not worth staying up past bed time.

Liz Licorish
LizFlix@ElitesTV.com