Better Watch Out

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Ashley (played by Olivia DeJonge) gets a job babysitting 12-year-old Luke (Levi Miller) during the Christmas holiday while his parents (played by Patrick Warburton and Virginia Madsen) are away at a holiday party. While the two are alone, things eventually start going wrong. This is another movie that actually does a good job playing with the conventions of slasher movies. It sort of feels like the opposite of that movie The Babysitter that came out a couple of months ago. The 12-year-old kid is actually the villain this time around. There’s actually good development between our hero and villain. They reveal that Luke actually has feelings for Ashley, and is willing to go to extremes to get what he wants, at least until he realizes he can’t get what he wants. Much of the movie is our heroine trying to survive a brutal night. The two leads are awesome. Olivia DeJonge is pretty solid throughout the whole thing. At first, I wasn’t feeling Levi Miller’s performance. Then, he started playing sinister. From there, the kid just seems like he’s having a ball and becomes a ton of fun to watch. But, the filmmakers never forget to make him actually feel like a legitimate threat. The ending is actually really good. They make it look like it’s going to go a certain way, but then they throw a wrench in it. As much as I enjoyed it, this movie does its flaws. There are points in Luke’s initial plan that play out without any explanation, so there never feels like there could have been any way these could have been pulled off the way they were.

7 / 10