

The Sitter, a.k.a. While the Children Sleep (2007)


Directed by Russell Mulcahy
Written by Stephen Niver

PictureSuperstition. So many people scoff at it before they have children. But then, after they give birth, don’t even try to make a joke about hammer-wielding psychotic babysitters.

A credible performance by Mariana Klaveno goes a long way toward selling this TV movie that ultimately fails to satisfy. At the heart of The Sitter is an idea also traipsing around the tepid 1992 film The Hand That Rocks the Cradle: How much do most affluent families really know about the individuals they (sometimes desperately) employ and underpay to care for their children?

That’s right, it’s one more excuse for a paranoid lesson in Stranger Danger. But don’t be scared. It’s only a movie! In fact, it’s only an American movie! And it’s only an American TV movie! Which means no children or infants or feeble adults or beloved pets will be harmed. Well, maybe a beloved pet. And a few family friends who are, basically, creeps. This is exactly where most American producers draw the line, thus emasculating all flicks about weird babysitters who come to save the day and ending up slaughtering everyone–one of horror’s most potentially fertile premises.

Years ago I watched a late night, Euro, psycho-sitter film on TV. In this version, which must have been released in the 1980s, a full-time babysitter comes to live in a household of loving parents and five offspring. In the only frightening and plausible film I have yet seen in the Au Pair Psycho Genre, the charming sitter chops and grinds her way through the entire family, and then sets forth on her next adventure–like a deranged Mary Poppins.

Why is it that American producers, writers, and directors don’t have the nerve to follow through on a story like that? Are we too superstitious to allow ourselves even a brief, old-fashioned catharsis? Is it only my Irish ancestors who believe in warding off evil by summoning up vile thoughts as vividly as possible?

Drop me a line if you know the title of that European film. I’d love to watch it again.

Moms and dads: It’s only a movie!

S.P. Miskowski

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