There's something creepy about little kids. I mean, I love kids. I worked in a daycare for awhile when I started college, and I always dreamed of having kids someday. But still, they can be creepy. Maybe it's their unfiltered way of saying whatever they're thinking, or their habit if staring at you like they can see into your soul. Horror movies with creepy little kids tend to work for me, mostly because I already find kids a little bit weird to begin with, so it's easier for me to picture them being evil. I don't know, but this movie drew me in. I mean, look at that poster. Yikes.
So this movie is about a girl who goes to a strange house for a babysitting job and encounters something horrific inside. That premise works really well as a setup for a horror movie because going to watch a kid you've never met before, plus you're responsible for the health and safety of a tiny human, and you're not the kid's parent, so you have no parental instinct to guide you, so you're kind of just winging it.
The setup works, and the dark shadows in the house look plenty foreboding, plus their are flickering lights, creepy sounds, and jump cuts that keep things tense. If anything, I wish the filmmakers had toned down the growling death metal vocals at some point, because they tend to be cheesy instead of scary. We don't get to know the main character either, which means we don't know her enough to care about her as much as I'd like. Although she does well enough in the role. This is going to sound weird, but I like her whole no makeup, dressed down, acne showing look. It made her seem more real, I guess, which helped me care more about what happened to her.
Once the action gets going there are some good scenes. A few jump scares, and the washed-out look and weird lighting added to a sense of unreality. I was never sure if what was happening onscreen was supposed to be real, or a dream, or the imagination of the main character. It's all kind of muddled. Plus once we're introduced to the other characters in the movie, friends of the girl who is babysitting, some of them are assholes, and they don't really seem to like each other, so it's a mystery why they're even friends.
The longer the movie goes on, the less believable the plot becomes. I have to wonder what these dipshits all think they're doing just hanging out at a random family's house and drinking their beer, like the parents won't notice, or come home early and flip the fuck out. Plus the baby is the soundest sleeper in the universe to not wake up with all the idiots crashing around and screaming through the house. I wish I could sleep that well. And I get that the movie has to rely on these contrivances in order to further the story, but it does get annoying after awhile.
The ghostly imagery is mostly effective, and the solution, when the characters finally start figuring things out, is a little ridiculous since it basically consists of one character explaining the nuances of ghostly activity like he's giving a lecture on the topic. Also I have to wonder at the timing of some of the events. One guy storms off and then no one thinks to go look for him for like hours, then another girl snaps, obviously upset, and runs off, and her friends go on talking like nothing is wrong. Then the girl who stormed off apparently takes 45 minutes to run up the stairs, leaving plenty of time for the ghost to wreak havoc. It's all just silly and unbelievable. It's a shame too, because there is some good here, but it gets lost in the murky swirl of crap that is the rest of the movie.
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