31 Days of Halloween: Samara Weaving Night: The Babysitter: Killer Queen -- A Bloody Return to Culty Chaos

The Babysitter: Killer Queen - McG – 2020

 

★★★-Day 7 of the Nightmare on Film Street 31 Days of Halloween Horror Challenge. Samara Weaving night. Don’t mind if I do. 

A horror-comedy sequel to The Babysitter, picking up two years after the pre-pubescent star survives a satanic cult led by his babysitter. He must once again fight for his life when the cult he Home Aloned to death returns for revenge, still after his virgin blood.

 

Starts with the survivor virgin dude from the first one (a youngan named Judah Lewis) being pretty much a pariah with his little girlfriend, played by Emily Alyn Lind (she was Snakebite Andi in Doctor Sleep), now with the school’s jocky douche. You'll probably also recognize Ken Marino from Party Down and Wet Hot American Summer and Leslie Bibb from Trick 'r Treat and Talladega Nights. They were in the first movie with slightly bigger parts as the parents of the protagonist.

 

Directed by McG. He did several movies in the aughts that no one cared for. Charlie's Angels movies, We Are Marshall, Terminator Salvation (that’s the one where Christian Bale lost his shit on the director of photography). These Babysitter flicks are dope though.

 

More brutal than the original (decapitations, spontaneous combustions, death by propeller, so forth), this one also has its share of humor. Like trying to bone so he isn’t so pure they want to kill him and what not.

 

I have trouble telling Lind apart from Kathryn Newton and Rose McIver. In this flick, she is also consciously trying to resemble Samara Weaving, who herself looks a lot like Margot Robbie. They are all very beautiful women, but sort of out of hot blonde central casting. There is a pretty sweet Ortega vs. Lind Gen Z “it girl” off at the end. I liked it. But less than the first one. Still waiting on that third one, though. 

We're the Millers - Rawson Marshall Thurber - 2013

★★★-Movie about chosen family, how skeezy boyfriends can fuck your shit up, and how high level drug dealers are funny as shit. Torture, femicide, beheadings, always good for a chuckle. 

Gist is Jason Sudeikis is a small-time pot deal gets his drugs and money stolen and is in some shit with his college buddy (Ed Helms) whose a kingpin. Forces him to go to Mexico to smuggle a couple tons of weed. Turns out he is actually going down to rip off the cartel. This is a comedy, in case you couldn't tell. To minimize suspicious, Sudeikis gets a massive RV and assembles a fake family consisting of his stripper neighbor played by Jennifer Aniston (who has never looked more attractive, goddamn), homeless Emma Roberts, and this nerd played by Will Poulter from Midsommar and the new Guardians movie. Hijinks ensue. They also meet up with DEA agent Nick Offerman and his wife (Kathryn Hahn from Glass Onion and Bad Words) and kid (Molly C. Quinn from the show Castle), which complicates muling drugs, dontcha know. 

Directed by one Rawson Marshall Thurber who also Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (a personal fave), Central Intelligence, and Red Notice. Get cameos from Ken Marino, Luis Guzman, and Thomas Lennon as well. 

Funniest scene is when the nerdy kid is taught how to make out by his fake mom and sister while the fake dad films it when his love interest inevitably walks in, the chick he wanted to impress with his kissing ability. There is also a not unfunny scene that involves what some people think is a baby getting run over by a semi but it's just drugs. 

There is a scene when the fake fam wants to renegotiate with Sudeikis when they find out how much dude is making on the deal. He ends up leaving them at an RV campground. With the cartel on their asses, I thought that was probably the best thing that could have happened to them. Also, lot of cartel humor in this flick. That's something I've always thought of when thinking of the Mexican drug trade, the humor! No. 

All this said, it was alright although somewhat forgettable. Solid cast whom I mostly enjoy in everything, a couple of good laughs, and never boring fun. 

Cursed Friends - Laura Murphy - 2022

★★- More forgettable crap. Group of friends play a fortune telling game as kids and the stuff they predicted starts happening when they are adults. 

Not exactly how they come up with this, but they  think they have to like kill the people they predicted they’d marry to break the curse. Then if one does kill their spouse, the curse is broken for all of them, so they mistakenly think. Long story short, Guillermo straight up murders Rob Riggle, and his friends are cool with it. This even though it doesn’t work. Which is all to say, a crazy, complicated storyline that is nearly impossible to follow. 

So, yeah. Overall, pretty bad, but fun. Sort of. They were advertising the shit out of this when I was in NYC a few months ago right before it came out… but why?