Movies
[Review] Netflix’s ‘A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting’ Offers Light Halloween Fantasy Horror
The title alone indicates whether this Netflix original will appeal to your tastes; it aptly describes all you need to know about the film. In a world where monsters exist and seek to steal children, it’s up to a secret organization of babysitters to stop them. Set around Halloween, A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting offers a lighthearted, breezy family-friendly fantasy horror movie aimed toward a much younger audience.
Based on the first installment of Joe Ballarini‘s popular scary book series of the same name, the story follows high school freshman Kelly Ferguson (Tamara Smart). Kelly is a socially awkward, yet a whip-smart student who reluctantly agrees to babysit Jacob Zellman (Ian Ho) on Halloween. She finds that Jacob refuses to fall asleep, doing whatever he can to stay awake and avoid the monsters he insists are waiting for him in the dark. To her horror, she discovers he’s telling the truth, and that there’s an international secret society of babysitters tasked with protecting kids from monsters. When he’s taken by the boogeyman known as the Grand Guignol (Tom Felton), Kelly’s in over her head. She teams with no-nonsense chapter Vice President Liz Lerue (Oona Laurence), tech genius Berna Vincent (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson), creature expert Cassie Zhen (Lynn Masako Cheng), and potions master Curtis Critter (Ty Consiglio) to get him back before his mother knows he’s missing.
Directed by Rachel Talalay (Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare), and adapted for the screen by Ballarini, A Babysitter’s Guide zips right along, maintaining an energetic and propulsive flow. There’s a lot of introductory ground to cover, from Kelly’s high school life to the world of monsters and its young enforcers looking to keep children safe from their clutches. With a colorful visual aesthetic to match, Talalay emphasizes the fantastical. The villains, and their corresponding set pieces, are larger than life. So, too, are the performances. It’s a loud, neon world full of baby-snatching monsters, and the theatrics ensure the tone is fun over scary. Even the human world is over the top- a late act scene at a high school Halloween house party features unending fireworks, as just one small example of the excess. Again, it’s all spooky fun to lure its preteen audience.
As the budding heroine, Smart’s Kelly serves as audience proxy as Liz shows her the ropes and rules of monster hunting. Kelly’s hesitant partnership with the abrasive, take charge society leader offers an odd couple of sorts that seeks to provide growth and poignancy as these opposites learn from each other throughout the narrative. Both leads make strong role models for young girls. The precise type of pure media full of life lessons you’d want for the kiddies.
Will adults and seasoned horror fans enjoy this irreverent romp with monsters? Probably not, but it’s not created with them in mind. A Babysitter’s Guide was made solely with the young girl in mind. It’s an introductory film into this monster-filled universe, but Talalay and Ballarini make sure to focus on a self-contained story that only teases continuation. It’s simple, breezy, and theatrical. The world-building through neon glow, creature design, and impressive set pieces gives an epic, visually engaging quality to a simple tale. There’s nothing groundbreaking or new here; just your standard Hero’s Journey narrative for girls. That’s okay. It’s silly and wholesome entertainment perfect for the Halloween season, only with a very specific audience in mind.
A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting releases on Netflix on October 15, 2020.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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