The Babysitter (1980)

Memorable, crazy movie

Highly Overrated But Still Good

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This is a TV thriller where Liz Benedict (Patty Duke) hires 18 year-old Joanna Redwine (Stephanie Zimbalist) as her housekeeper and be a live-in companion to her daughter, Tara (Quinn Cummings). But, Joanna gradually manipulates everyone and attempts to break up the family. The plot has some suspenseful moments, including the parts where a doctor tries to dig up dirt on Joanna's past, but much of the movie is mired by bad acting, slow pacing, and lack of attention grabbing scenes. Patty Duke's character was extremely hopeless and annoying and William Shatner seemed disinterested in his role throughout the entire movie. Stephanie Zimbalist looks dazed throughout the story, while the most serviceable acting goes to Quinn Cummings. There's really nothing thrilling about this TV flick. OK to pass on it. Grade D

Good acting by a solid cast makes this somewhat-familiar material worth slogging through, even though the issues it raises seem to get all fouled up. Patty Duke Astin plays a doctor's wife who has hired a mysterious young woman to care for her rather hapless daughter, which causes friction in their already-shaky household. Quinn Cummings, fresh off her stint on TV's "Family", has a few surprisingly strong scenes standing up to babysitter Stephanie Zimbalist, but Zimbalist's role is a wash-out. Her character isn't given the grand, juicy build-up that villains usually receive in television suspensers, but perhaps this time it was a mistake (director Peter Medak is so overly-cautious letting the pieces fall into place that he becomes unintentionally coy about the whole thing). The film is shrouded in murk; Medak, going for a low-key mood, doesn't allow the drama to take shape, and as a result the story and characters become lethargic blobs.

My TIVO is programmed to get William Shatner films since he's usually so much fun to watch in action. But he proved relatively restrained in his role.Frankly, I wasn't expecting much from this film, perhaps a kitschy hour and a half of entertainment.I've never seen Remingston Steele, so as soon as a young Zimbalist comes on the screen I could no help thinking "wow, who is that?" She is very convincing in the role of an enigmatic housekeeper who works her way into the family of Shatner and Duke-Astin.The film begins at a slow pace, but has the saving grace of not falling into the typical and predictable TV movie of the week plot.The acting is very good all around, as well as Zimbalist, Duke-Astin and John Houseman turn in good performances.I was surprised to see on IMDb after watching the film that it was directed by Peter Medak. I greatly respect Medak for his work in _The Changeling_ (1980), _The Krays_ (1990) and _Romeo is Bleeding_ (1993), all non-mainstream highly-respected (nearly cult) films. It is really surprising that Medak seems to weave between these films and TV sitcoms, movies of the week, and so on. His influence in creating the proper mood is, in retrospect, dominant in the film.As someone else mentioned, the sound quality is quite bad and it is at times difficult to make out the dialog.

When I first saw "hand that rocks the cradle" I remember thinking this premise had been done before in a really chilling TV movie. Couldn't remember the title. For some reason I thought it was The nanny.(Haha). Well, it came back to me so here's my review of the babysitter.I can't call this anywhere near a good movie but I liked it when I saw it mainly because the whole "stalker movie" genre had not been overdone as of yet-or maybe I was just to young to care.At any rate-this follows a very similar premise to cradle-I guess Joanna was more a housesitter then a nanny, though I seem to remember it differently. It doesn't matter though because if you know the plot of hand that rocks the cradle you know the plot of the babysitter. For some reason, though-and maybe it was because of the then newness of the premise this TV movie scared the heck out of me.It is more chilling then cradle, less campy. Joanna, whose name I remembered after all this time, is genuinely frightening. I wouldn't mind seeing this again mainly because this was an early stalker movie and I'd like to see if it still chilled me as much.It's hard to do a complete review as the movie's a bit of a blur to me but I do remember the story as being dark and really creepy. I don't remember any gore-if it were to come out now I'm sure it'd be laughed at by many but back then, when the premise was still new it was pretty darn good thriller material, if not a genuinely good movie. For Genuine fans of cradle though, this is a must see.