Better Watch Out (2016)

Director: Chris Peckover

Starring: Olivia DeJonge, Levi Miller, Ed Oxenbould

On a quiet suburban street, a babysitter must defend a twelve-year-old boy from intruders, only to discover it’s far from a normal home invasion.

In similar fashion to ‘Hard Candy’, ‘Better Watch Out’ aims to shock its audience with a child antagonist. Although it wasn’t as nerve-wrecking as ‘Hard Candy’ it is still unsettling seeing a kid commit these horrible crimes.

There’s no way for me not to do spoilers on this one, so rather stop reading if you want to be surprised.

12-Year old Luke has a crush on his 17-year old babysitter Ashley. The opening scenes are well set up to prepare us for the events to come, and I though this was cleverly done. When Ashley and Luke are threatened by a mysterious assailant, we root for them. But it is then revealed Luke and his best friend Garrett played a prank on Ashley with the hopes of Luke being given a chance to seduce Ashley. When their plan backfires, Luke and Garrett resort to extreme measures. And this is where I almost stopped watching.

When the prank was revealed, the events prior to that suddenly didn’t feel believable anymore. The film obviously intended to shock its audience with the evil a child is capable of, but if you want to shock the audience, then you have to be prepared to go all they way, and not just halfway. When Luke is dared to touch Ashley’s breast during a game of truth or dare, for example, this action is shown out of view. It would have been a lot creepier to witness this. Instead, it is pretty much left to the viewer’s imagination. Its as if the director was over-cautious showing this to the audience given the fact it was child stars. But I have seen kids do much worse things in movies!

In a scene where a character’s head is bashed in with a paint can, again nothing is shown to the viewer. We see the paint can swinging towards the victim, and in the next scene we see paint and blood dripping to the floor, with everything else left to the viewer’s imagination while the other characters present reel in shock. Once again, it would have been a lot creepier had this been shown. No, I didn’t necessarily wanted to see the gory details, but at least allow the audience a glimpse – even if just a second.

It felt like they held back on shock elements in order to get a lower age restriction and thus a wider appeal. Unfortunately, it resulted in a film with so much potential, but a lost opportunity to truly shock the audience. Think ‘Hard Candy’ and 2017’s ‘The Babysitter’ featuring kid/teen antagonists and you’ll understand what I mean.

Would I watch it again? No.