You have to maintain a certain level of insane confidence in yourself to make your professional name McG. But for 20 years that is what the former music video director has gone by as a feature film director, starting with 2000’s Charlie’s Angels. Since then he has made a name for creating stylish (and often over stylized) films and television loaded with kinetic action and questionable humor.
And aside from being a horror film, 2017’s The Babysitter mostly fit into McG’s well tread style and it mostly worked. I really enjoyed The Babysitter and its tale of a blood cult that sets out to kill Cole, a 14 year old kid, as part of a ritual to grant them their deepest desires. Led by Samara Weaving and a group of pretty people, the villains were fun and enjoyable with well placed jokes and well paced action. But the premise was what held it all together, think basically Home Alone but more grisly.
The Babysitter: Killer Queen picks up two years after the events of the first film and sees Cole in high school and not dealing well with things. His parents are worried about him and are set to lock him up in the psychiatric academy when his best friend takes him on a road trip to a nearby lake. Away from everything with the intention of clearing his mind, Cole is not quite feeling this trip but plays along until the blood cult that he killed in the first film return from the dead to finish what they started. It gets a bit disjointed from this point on with each of our villains getting their own little time to shine (and be killed) and it’s held together with a few strong one liners and some generous blood splatter.
It’s not nearly as good as the original film but it worked as just the type of stupid horror comedy I needed today. I mean, I got to see Bella Thorne shoot herself in the boob and then get her head yanked off so you know… it was one of those types of days.
3*
