Babysitter, The

Released by: Olive Films
Released on: August 25th, 2015.
Director: Guy Ferland
Cast: Alicia Silverstone, George Segal, Jeremy London, J.T. Walsh, Nicky Katt
Year: 1995
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The Movie:

The Babysitter was, like The Crush and Clueless, a breakout role for Alicia Silverstone. Directed by Guy Ferland, who also wrote the script, the film tells the story of a teenage babysitter named Jennifer (Silverstone) who is hired by Harry (J. T. Walsh) and Dolly Tucker (Lee Garlington) to watch their kids for a night.

While all of this is going on, two teenage boys - Jack (Jeremy London) and Mark (Nicky Katt) - are hanging out. When Mark learns that Jennifer is babysitting for the night he convinces Jack, who has some sort of poorly defined pre-existing relationship with the young lady, that she'll be an easy lay and that with the parents out of the house, well, they should head on over with some booze and try their luck. What no one else realizes is that Harry has got the hots for Jennifer too, in fact, he spends an unhealthy amount of his free time having fantasies about her - if he's not surprising her while she's having a bath, he's interrupting her alone time with Jack and taking his place in the sack!

But wait, there's more - the pre-pubescent boy Jennifer is watching for the night proves that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, because he's got a thing for her too all while Dolly has got ideas of her own involving the next door neighbor, Bill (George Segal). It all comes to a head when Mark decides he's going to break in and have Jennifer whether she likes it or not, unaware that an inebriated Harry has started the car to head home…

This marginally sleazy dramatic thriller will offer Silverstone's fan base plenty of eye candy and it's likely remained a cult curio for that reason alone, but in terms of actual substance it comes up short, where it didn't have to. Jennifer's relationship with Jack isn't fleshed out enough to mean much and for that reason the subplot involving he and Mark trying to get into her pants lacks the dramatic punch it needed to work. The key concept of the older man (Harry as the father character) lusting after the younger, foxy babysitter isn't a new one - Don Henderson exploited it in 1969's The Babysitter and John Hayes in 1977 with Jailbait Babysitter - but here this theme too is underdeveloped. Had we been given more insight into Harry's relationship with Dolly maybe we could have understood why, beyond her looks, Harry has the hots for Jennifer but all we really know is that his wife lusts for… George Segal? Okay. We'll run with it.

Silverstone, to her credit, is actually pretty good here as the catalyst for all of the immoral thoughts that pretty much every character in the film seems to have for her. She doesn't have a whole lot of dialogue, and instead is left to use her charm and her screen presence to emote and to convey. She does it well. She looks the part, she's attractive enough that we can see why the men in the movie are drawn to her, and by keeping her character slightly detached Ferland winds up making us want to know more about her. Sadly we don't really get it though.

At times it seems like the movie is trying to skewer the clichés that it is so gleefully dealing with and in doing so maybe he's trying to get us to not only judge the guilty parties but to question our own feelings for Silverstone's character. She's definitely sexualized to a very strong degree here and there's obviously no room for that to have been unintentional. We do see the male fantasies become more extreme, vulgar even, as the evolve over the course of a night's drinking from protecting her to physically taking her regardless of her feelings on the matter, but when it's all said and done the finale leaves us with little more than a reaction shot of our leading lady looking understandably upset. This in and of itself isn't a problem, but what is tricky if that said reaction shot seems to infer that all of this is her fault.

Are the men in the film such weak willed horn-dogs that they can't control themselves? Is Jennifer responsible for their combined stupidity simply by being attractive? Only Guy Ferland knows for sure and he's off working on some pretty successful TV projects lately - The Walking Dead, The Strain and Daredevil to name a few. Given that it was his first directorial effort we'll cut him some slack but as entertaining as this is in a 'mid-nineties Cinemax/Red Shoe Diaries' kind of way, the movie is full of confused characters and oddly mixed messages.

Video/Audio/Extras:

The Babysitter debuts on Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.78.1 widescreen and it looks quite good. The mild coat of grain is never distracting and there isn't any real print damage to complain about, just some small specks here and there. The color reproduction looks really good, which complements certain sequences quite nicely as when they are bathed in bold colors and are heavy on reds. Skin tones look good, nice and natural and never too pink or waxy looking, while black levels are decent as well. Detail easily surpasses what DVD would have offered here as does texture. This is a pretty solid presentation.

The sole audio option on this disc is an English language DTS-HD 2.0 Stereo track that doesn't contain any noticeable background hiss at all. The score sounds pretty good here, lots of cheesy instrumental 'mood music' swells up appropriately enough in the sexy scenes, while the dialogue stays clean and clear. There are no subtitle options or alternate language tracks provided.

Save for a static menu and chapter selection this Blu-ray is, unfortunately, completely devoid of any extra features whatsoever.

The Final Word:

The Babysitter is a curious film to be sure. While Silverstone gets a pass for doing what she does here quite well, the story doesn't have enough meat on its bones to really work the way it should. It's interesting to watch and think about and probably too easy to over-analyze, but there are some pretty big holes here. Having said that, despite the lack of extras the Blu-ray release from Olive films looks and sounds good. Silverstone completists, and we know you're out there, will probably want to snatch this up.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!