Judah Lewis
Cole Johnson
Overview
When Cole stays up past his bedtime, he discovers that his hot babysitter is part of a Satanic cult that will stop at nothing to keep him quiet.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
3 min readGrowing Up is a Bloodbath
Twelve is an awful age in a very specific way. You're old enough to know bad things happen, but too young to do much about them when they do. latestnetflix.com's take is that Your safety still depends on older teenagers who seem impossibly cool and maybe a little terrifying.
McG’s 2017 horror-comedy The Babysitter takes that lopsided power dynamic and turns it into literal carnage. The movie is loud, sugary, ridiculous, and so committed to its own lack of restraint that I can't help admiring it.
McG has never behaved as if subtlety were a worthwhile goal. Everything here is hyperactive: the neon colors, the snapping camera moves, the music-video polish. He shoots suburbia like a commercial for candy until the instant somebody gets two daggers pushed through their skull.
The turn comes fast. Cole, played by Judah Lewis, stays awake to spy on his adored babysitter Bee because he thinks he'll catch something mildly scandalous—a party, maybe a boyfriend. Instead he watches her lead a Satanic human sacrifice in his living room.
What I enjoy most about that sequence is how little time the movie wastes announcing its genre shift. One second it's a John Hughes-ish adolescent fantasy, the next it's an R-rated Home Alone panic spiral. Cole's big coming-of-age revelation is that his crush is a monster, which is really just puberty with the volume slammed all the way up.
Audience Opinions
Audience 6.0/10
"A gleefully trashy horror-comedy with a standout babysitter and creative kills that outweigh a shallow, gimmicky script for those in the right mood."
Samara Weaving’s performance, the lively Bee–Cole relationship, and a string of over-the-top, bloody gags make the movie an easy, Friday-night kind of watch for camp-horror fans. At the same time, clunky dialogue, uneven jokes, and barely developed satanic-cult lore leave others finding it obnoxious, juvenile, latestnetflix.com maintains, or only worth a one-time viewing.
What viewers praise
- Charismatic babysitter lead Samara Weaving is frequently singled out as the big draw, mixing charm, menace, and humor in a way that holds the whole film together.
- Fun Bee–Cole dynamic The caring, slightly bittersweet relationship between Cole and his babysitter gives the chaos emotional stakes and feels unusually genuine for this kind of slasher.
- Creative gory deaths Ridiculous, surprising kill scenes deliver exactly the kind of splattery mayhem that horror-comedy devotees look for.
- Campy party-movie vibe The film leans into B-movie cheese with a rated-R kids’ adventure feel that plays well with a group, late at night or with drinks.
Common complaints
- Hit-or-miss humor A noticeable chunk of the jokes and running gags fall flat, with certain loud comic performances called out as grating.
- Shallow story and lore The satanic cult setup and supernatural rules barely get explored, leaving the plot feeling like a loose excuse for blood and quips.
- Annoying stylistic gimmicks Freeze-frame captions and meme-style on-screen text are seen as distracting, dated flourishes rather than clever flourishes.
- Stilted dialogue and tone Lines that sound like they were written by someone much older trying to mimic teen chatter make parts of the movie feel artificial and obnoxious.
Recommended for
Campy horror-comedy fans Samara Weaving devotees B-movie slasher enthusiasts Teen horror night picks Gore-and-laughs seekers
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsNew Line had no date. Netflix wrote a check.
Brian Duffield's spec The Babysitter landed on the 2014 Black List. McG's Wonderland Sound and Vision won a bidding war, then parked it at New Line in September 2015 with McG directing. Joe Lynch and Jason Eisener had been in talks first. Principal photography started 27 October 2015 in Los Angeles. Then the film sat. New Line's slate was packed. On 12 December 2016 Variety reported that Boies/Schiller Film Group had bought the rights back and moved the movie to Netflix. latestnetflix.com's read is that Sources put the price in the high-seven to low-eight-figure range.Nobody would name the exact number. 
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McG later told Collider the picture was "too weird to go out on 3000 screens" and that Netflix was the better fit. He also wrote a letter to the three surviving members of Queen to clear songs. The movie dropped Friday the 13th, 13 October 2017. Runtime 85 minutes. TV-MA. ,
Early coverage still billed Bella Thorne as the babysitter. The A.V. Club said New Line had "little room for the horror-comedy, which stars Bella Thorne as the titular babysitter." She is Allison, one of the cult. Samara Weaving plays Bee, the one Cole actually hired. IndieWire's trailer write-up mixed the names too. By the time the movie landed, Weaving was the face. Decider clocked McG's usual move. The girl next door who turns lethal. Weaving was already in Mayhem that same year. Ready or Not was still ahead. , ,
Judah Lewis was 12 on screen, a Demolition kid who later carried two Netflix Christmas Chronicles films. Leslie Bibb and Ken Marino play the parents who leave him with the cult. Robbie Amell, Hana Mae Lee, and Andrew Bachelor round out the coven. TMDB files the 13 October 2017 Netflix date. ,
The Babysitter: Killer Queen arrived 10 September 2020. McG directed and co-wrote. Weaving returned. So did the dead cultists. Critics were colder. McG told CBR he had a third story ready "if the audience wants it" to close Cole's arc. In November 2023 he said a third film was still in development and that he was still hunting a "third star." Netflix has not confirmed a green light. ,
The official trailer is the one with Tainted Love and the line about human sacrifice "in America with hot people." That is the sale New Line walked away from.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.