The Babysitter: Killer Queen
It worked for me because it continues exactly where it had to continue: in the same absurd, youthful, bloody and shameless territory as the first film. It does not try to reinvent anything or become more serious. It accepts that the original was nonsense with charm and decides to be another piece of nonsense, even more exaggerated, louder and stupider. And although that makes it a worse film, it also allows it to keep part of its charm. I laughed, watched it with pleasure and appreciated that it did not betray the spirit of the previous one.
The premise no longer has the surprise of the first part. That is very noticeable. Before, the discovery of what the babysitter was hiding had charm, danger and a sense of broken teenage fantasy. Now we already know what world we are in, the kind of humor, the kind of blood, the kind of madness and the kind of rules. So the film decides to turn up the volume: more deaths, more jokes, more colors, more chases, more conscious stupidity. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it feels as if it is shouting to compensate for the fact that it can no longer surprise as much.
The best thing is that it keeps that energy of rowdy comic book and pop slasher that I liked in the first one. Everything moves fast, everything is full of gestures, captions, music, visual punches and black humor. There is something very teenage in its way of understanding horror: not as a serious threat, but as a fairground ride with blood, desire, embarrassment, school trauma and the urge to make a mess. If you enter that frequency, the film can be enjoyed. If you do not, I completely understand that it may seem unbearable.
Cole works again as the center of the story. I like that he remains that boy marked by an impossible night and whom nobody quite believes. The film uses well the idea that surviving a nightmare does not mean being free of it. Now he not only has to escape the killers, but also the label of weirdo, hysterical victim, kid who cannot get over what happened. That emotional continuation seems more interesting to me than the film itself seems willing to admit.
I also like that the villains return with that joy of bloody caricature. They are not deep, and they do not need to be. They work as rowdy ghosts of adolescence, as a nightmare gang coming back to repeat the party. Each one brings a joke, a death, an excess and a moment to shine. The film knows it is playing with broken toys and does not pretend otherwise. In that sense, it preserves the absurd logic of the saga quite well.
But Samara Weaving’s absence weighs heavily. In the first film, she was the magnet, the perfect mixture of charm, danger, sensuality, humor and threat. Here the gap is obvious. The film tries to fill it with more characters, more noise and more twists, but it is not the same. It lacks her presence and the charisma that gave the madness a center. Without her for much of the running time, everything becomes more scattered and less magnetic.
The script is weaker and more rushed. Sometimes the film seems to confuse speed with grace, and accumulation with imagination. Some jokes land well, others fall dead, and some scenes go on longer than they should. The first was already outrageous, but it had a cleaner concept: boy, babysitter, satanic cult, survival night. This one adds more layers, more explanations and more characters, and it does not always gain from that.
Even so, I prefer its shamelessness to the apathy of so many sequels made out of obligation. Here at least there is a desire to entertain, to stain everything, to be ridiculous without apologizing. It is worse than the first one, yes, but not a fatal fall. It still has rhythm, funny moments, silly deaths, a loud visual style that fits its world and that sofa-movie feeling that does not want prestige, only for you to accept its idiocy and laugh with it.
What convinces me least is that everything feels less fresh. The surprise has been used up and some tricks repeat with less impact. Also, when it tries to organize the mythology or give more explanation to what previously worked through pure absurdity, it loses part of its grace. This universe works better when it runs, screams, bleeds and jokes than when it tries to justify its rules too much. The nonsense was nicer when it seemed spontaneous.
In the end, it remains for me an inferior but enjoyable sequel. Dumber, more excessive and more uneven, but faithful to the spirit of the first film. It does not have the same charisma, it does not have the same surprise and it suffers a lot from the absence of its great female figure, but it is still a likeable prank for anyone who enjoyed the previous one. I would not defend it with the same strength, but I would as a coherent continuation: a bloody party that arrives late, makes more noise than necessary and still manages to get a few laughs.
The premise no longer has the surprise of the first part. That is very noticeable. Before, the discovery of what the babysitter was hiding had charm, danger and a sense of broken teenage fantasy. Now we already know what world we are in, the kind of humor, the kind of blood, the kind of madness and the kind of rules. So the film decides to turn up the volume: more deaths, more jokes, more colors, more chases, more conscious stupidity. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it feels as if it is shouting to compensate for the fact that it can no longer surprise as much.
The best thing is that it keeps that energy of rowdy comic book and pop slasher that I liked in the first one. Everything moves fast, everything is full of gestures, captions, music, visual punches and black humor. There is something very teenage in its way of understanding horror: not as a serious threat, but as a fairground ride with blood, desire, embarrassment, school trauma and the urge to make a mess. If you enter that frequency, the film can be enjoyed. If you do not, I completely understand that it may seem unbearable.
Cole works again as the center of the story. I like that he remains that boy marked by an impossible night and whom nobody quite believes. The film uses well the idea that surviving a nightmare does not mean being free of it. Now he not only has to escape the killers, but also the label of weirdo, hysterical victim, kid who cannot get over what happened. That emotional continuation seems more interesting to me than the film itself seems willing to admit.
I also like that the villains return with that joy of bloody caricature. They are not deep, and they do not need to be. They work as rowdy ghosts of adolescence, as a nightmare gang coming back to repeat the party. Each one brings a joke, a death, an excess and a moment to shine. The film knows it is playing with broken toys and does not pretend otherwise. In that sense, it preserves the absurd logic of the saga quite well.
But Samara Weaving’s absence weighs heavily. In the first film, she was the magnet, the perfect mixture of charm, danger, sensuality, humor and threat. Here the gap is obvious. The film tries to fill it with more characters, more noise and more twists, but it is not the same. It lacks her presence and the charisma that gave the madness a center. Without her for much of the running time, everything becomes more scattered and less magnetic.
The script is weaker and more rushed. Sometimes the film seems to confuse speed with grace, and accumulation with imagination. Some jokes land well, others fall dead, and some scenes go on longer than they should. The first was already outrageous, but it had a cleaner concept: boy, babysitter, satanic cult, survival night. This one adds more layers, more explanations and more characters, and it does not always gain from that.
Even so, I prefer its shamelessness to the apathy of so many sequels made out of obligation. Here at least there is a desire to entertain, to stain everything, to be ridiculous without apologizing. It is worse than the first one, yes, but not a fatal fall. It still has rhythm, funny moments, silly deaths, a loud visual style that fits its world and that sofa-movie feeling that does not want prestige, only for you to accept its idiocy and laugh with it.
What convinces me least is that everything feels less fresh. The surprise has been used up and some tricks repeat with less impact. Also, when it tries to organize the mythology or give more explanation to what previously worked through pure absurdity, it loses part of its grace. This universe works better when it runs, screams, bleeds and jokes than when it tries to justify its rules too much. The nonsense was nicer when it seemed spontaneous.
In the end, it remains for me an inferior but enjoyable sequel. Dumber, more excessive and more uneven, but faithful to the spirit of the first film. It does not have the same charisma, it does not have the same surprise and it suffers a lot from the absence of its great female figure, but it is still a likeable prank for anyone who enjoyed the previous one. I would not defend it with the same strength, but I would as a coherent continuation: a bloody party that arrives late, makes more noise than necessary and still manages to get a few laughs.
Mini Review: It worked for me because it continues exactly where it had to continue: in the same absurd, youthful, bloody and shameless territory as the first film. It does not try to reinvent anything or become more serious. It accepts that the original was nonsense with charm and decides to be another piece of nonsense, even more exaggerated, louder and stupider. And although that makes it a worse film, it also allows it to keep part of its charm. I...
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