richspenc
The story of a vicious bitter old lady babysitting should not have been cut so short. First of all, the previews in the movie theaters at the time made out most of the preview misleading the audiences to believe that the babysitter would take up a bigger part of the movie. Secondly, they set up several good scenes with the babysitter (Eda Reiss Meringue) (such as her angrily stopping letting the kids watch TV and making them write book reports, for example on the life of the aardvark) and then just dropped them. Third, the writers made the old lady drop dead before the oldest punk rock kid Kenny (Keith Coogan) ever even saw her. I guess that at least set up a rather amusing joke where after she died, Kenny saying "yes, she was a great babysitter". I liked that. Kenny saying that after he first of all, he never saw her, and secondly, she was hardly great. Also sort of amusing was the implication that the old lady seeing Kenny's bedroom is what made her die. A bedroom that was super messy, with heavy metal playing, posters of half naked girls (Samantha Fox (she was a hot late 80s girl)), and with stashes of weed visible. I liked Kenny, but him continuously yelling "rock and roll!" was so cliché, even back then. Christina Applegate I always found super hot, after always watching her on "Married with children". Some of this movie was pretty innocent and feel good, but some of it was dumb too. When the kid's mom goes on a two month summer vacation to Australia and leave the kids with a sadistic old lady, much to Christina's (Sue Ellen, Sue El, Swell; her name shortened) protest, we get a ten minute long tops session of the babysitters scenes before she dies. Then, after a couple more amusing bits of the kids leaving a trunk with her body in it with message "nice old lady inside, died of natural causes" at the funeral home, and then too late realizing that they left the money on the dead babysitters person, they are all stuck and broke with almost two more months before mom comes home. Then the remainder, the main story of the film starts, Swell needing to work to support everyone for the next two months. Kenny was selfish there refusing to find a job too making Swell take on that full role. But I guess Kenny was needed to stay home and watch the little ones, even though he doesn't do a good job of that, getting stoned with his buddies in his room while one of the little ones plays on the roof, falls off and breaks his leg. The main story with Swell working at an office is pretty good but not real good, as of the short section of working at Happy face's (Happy face is the goofy overly eager manager) Clown Dog fast food where she meets Brian (Josh Charles). Her and Brian have a sort of cheesy love story (they hang out at the beach and also (please!) bounce around a department store on big bouncy balls, the type you see 7 year olds on). Brian also thinks his Clown Dog van makes him a hero when he comes to pick up the stranded kids outside of Chucky Cheeses when (chortle), Liza Mineli and Maralyn Monroe (well, thieves in those celebrities' masks) steal the kid's (well, the "borrowed" babysitter's) car. Brian gets suspicious of Swell cause she won't tell him where she works, reason being he's Karen's (Jayne Brook) brother. Karen is the super bitchy receptionist would-be executive assistant at the clothing company that gets her job taken away from Swell. Swell got the high level job through lying big time on her resume. Karen obviously now has a pretty major grudge towards Swell. I sort of understand Karen being sore with Swell since she pushed, as a newbie, ahead of someone who's been with the company for a while and grabbed a high level position away from her who was someone that the executive position was previously promised to. But Karen had already been unnecessarily rude to Swell before that happened when Swell innocently went to the wrong place to apply for a receptionist job. Executive Rose (Joan Cassidy) was initially the one who was gonna promote Karen to be her assistant but desperately didn't want to due to Rose admitting that Karen is usually a very difficult person to get along with. So Karen still needs to take some responsibility for having had such a bad attitude towards people. It's still not right to break a promise to someone you promised a promotion to, but there's no excuse for Karen being such a bitch in general to begin with. I'd say both parties were at some fault here. Another sleazy character was Gus (John Getz), a guy that Rose was involved with but decided to start hitting on Swell behind her back. Gus was sleazy since A), Swell made it clear she wasn't interested in him but he still pursued her anyway, and B), Gus was cheating on Rose. You can see Gus's sleaziness also when he takes Swell to a fancy Beverly Hills restaurant for lunch, buys her martinis (waiter snobbily to Swell: "sweet..or..dry?") and tells Swell in a sultry slobbering way "you will love the chicken here, it's very 'tender'". A couple other things kinda dumb: Swell taking the whole petty cash box home and the younger kids stealing lots of cash from it to buy expensive things like a vast entertainment system. The other dumb thing was Brian sobbing and pleading to take Swell back over the loud speaker of his Clown dog van outside of Swell's house completely oblivious to a big party with lots of people going on. Quite ridiculous don't ya think?
gridoon2018
It is tempting to state that the title of this movie is the funniest thing about it, but that would be inaccurate: it is the ONLY funny thing about it. It is also a very misleading title: after the first 10 minutes, the dead babysitter is forgotten about until the very last scene. It has a drab look (it looks made for TV, it's surprising that it got theatrical distribution), an amazingly aimless script, and dismal direction. There is nothing remotely believable, witty, and most importantly funny, about any of it. The character "Kenny" deserves to be shot. Ed O' Neill (as Al Bundy) joked about how terrible "Dutch" (which I haven't seen) was a couple of times on "Married With Children", I wonder why Christina Applegate (who tones down her attractiveness considerably here) never mentioned this movie on that show. Maybe she would rather forget it ever happened. 0.5 out of 4 stars.
chloe-webb-01
How could you NOT like this movie! I am watching it right now, and it has inspired me to write a review, and hopefully give it more recognition and more importantly, a higher rating!!!! Kids home alone with no parents, free to do whatever, but also trying to maintain living! Each character has their own stereotype- Walter the youngest: a handful, Melissa: the disobedient tomboy, Kenny: the headbanging rocker drop-out, Zachary: the calm, but sneaky love struck teen and Sue-Ellen: the responsible, yet hip mother of her siblings. This movie is full of much excitement and a great plot. You cannot go past this underrated classic!
