Quickfire round: The Babysitter: Killer Queen

This movie would probably have made more sense if I knew it was a sequel and watched the original before diving into it. Oh well, it was still entertaining. Read on for some spoilers.

The shirtless demon is just funny, every single time you see it.

The movie follows on a few years after the events of the first. Put simply, our hero Cole’s babysitter turned out to be a psycho demon who needed to complete a ritual in order to pay her debt to the devil and achieve her dreams. Long story (and actual movie, which I suggest you go and watch first) short, his parents return to see a car embedded in their house and their son trying (and failing) to convince anyone about what had really happened that night.

Having discovered that his parents want to send him away to rehab for his ‘delusions’, Cole skips school with childhood friend Melanie and boards a party boat with her friends. Splat! One of the group is violently murdered in front of him. That’s right, it’s happening again. In fact, there’s double the demon in this movie as the original cast are back for revenge and to finish what they started.

And so commences what I imagine was quite similar to the first movie: Cole escapes and somehow, Home Alone-style, he manages to take out the demons one by one. It’s violent and bloody but also funny – the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously (I don’t think anyone is convinced about the underlying plot, not even the writers) and overall is a good watch for something with Halloween vibe that won’t absolutely terrify you. Yes, it has teen movie tropes (‘Kid, you just need to get laid!’ is the suggestion of his therapist) but some elements are funny in their own right, like Max, a demon who is inexplicably shirtless the entire time, just because.

The movie does half-hearted attempt at misdirecting the viewer into thinking that new girl Phoebe will end up being a baddie, not least because she sticks out like a sore thumb and opens her locker to a message of ‘it ends tonight’. I must admit that, even deep into the runtime, I still had my doubts about her. The way things panned out, however, I think that was more just me overthinking it than intentional writing.

If you haven’t seen the first movie you should probably watch that so the plot makes a bit more sense, but either way this movie hit the mark. Nothing exciting, nothing game-changing, just good (messy) fun.

425w

Quickfire round: Guns Akimbo

Shallow plot? Check. Backstory tropes? Check. Terrible accents? Check. Nasty, gratuitous violence? Hell yeah. This movie ticks all the boxes of a cheap action comedy, and trust me, that’s a good thing.

In case you’re wondering, no, he can’t reload, he literally has guns bolted to his hands

Look, to be honest with you the plot is not worth talking about. All you need to know is an American-accented Daniel Radcliffe (Miles) wakes up one day and he has pistols physically bolted to both of his hands. He can’t even dress himself, so he leaves his house in his dressing gown and Big Foot slippers.

Okay, there’s a bit more to it than that. He’s just been forced into participating in Skism, an underground fight-to-the-death franchise streamed online to millions. It usually pits criminals against each other, but Miles is no criminal. He’s an anti-troll, keyboard warrior picking fights with viewers of the Skism stream via the comments section. When he lands the starring role, so to speak, he’s up against Nix, the undefeated champion.

Nix is played by Samara Weaving, who also starred in the brilliantly violent Ready or Not (I’m sensing a trend here!). As you can probably guess, Nix doesn’t kill Miles immediately, as she easily could. Instead, Miles and Nix embark on a game of cat and mouse, exchanging well-timed comedic phrases each time they meet.

The plot is full of tropes and the violence is ridiculous, but, again, dude literally has guns for hands. The question to ask of movies like these is not, ‘is this a well thought out, engaging story with great acting?’ but rather ‘is there shooty shooty bang bang with good action shots and a pace that doesn’t bore me?’. This film nails that vibe. It’s not a good movie, but it’s a great watch.

298w