ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

shino My TIVO is programmed to get William Shatner films since he's usually so much fun to watch in action. But he proved relatively restrained in his role.Frankly, I wasn't expecting much from this film, perhaps a kitschy hour and a half of entertainment.I've never seen Remingston Steele, so as soon as a young Zimbalist comes on the screen I could no help thinking "wow, who is that?" She is very convincing in the role of an enigmatic housekeeper who works her way into the family of Shatner and Duke-Astin.The film begins at a slow pace, but has the saving grace of not falling into the typical and predictable TV movie of the week plot.The acting is very good all around, as well as Zimbalist, Duke-Astin and John Houseman turn in good performances.I was surprised to see on IMDb after watching the film that it was directed by Peter Medak. I greatly respect Medak for his work in _The Changeling_ (1980), _The Krays_ (1990) and _Romeo is Bleeding_ (1993), all non-mainstream highly-respected (nearly cult) films. It is really surprising that Medak seems to weave between these films and TV sitcoms, movies of the week, and so on. His influence in creating the proper mood is, in retrospect, dominant in the film.As someone else mentioned, the sound quality is quite bad and it is at times difficult to make out the dialog.

MovieAddict2016 First things first: There's no baby in this movie, and it's not about a babysitter. So why did they call it "The Babysitter"? I don't know. Because of the drugs the cast and crew were taking, maybe? (I suspect acid, but maybe downers, just to ease the pain of knowing they were starring in such an awful movie.) It's about a family torn apart by a ruthless housesitter with a secretive past. Yes, a HOUSEsitter. Not a BABYsitter. Unless a balding, wig-wearing Will "I Used to Be Famous, Look at Me Now" Shatner counts as a big blubbering baby. He certainly acts like one in this movie. So either it's a smart satire with a self-referential title... or the writer just forgot that it's not about any babies. Or babysitters. (I just can't stress this fact enough!) The housesitter is a sexy 18-year-old seductress, a bit like Drew Barrymore in "Poison Ivy," only not quite as demented. She tries to seduce William Shatner, and he refuses her advances after she pokes fun at him a little bit. Aww, poor baby! (FYI, I wouldn't have cared if she called me scum of the earth!) The Hungarian director Peter Medak has a resume filled with TV movies and television shows. After seeing this it's not surprising he hasn't been able to graduate to the big screen successfully yet.The characters are lame and underdeveloped, the plot is all over the place; scenes lack cohesion and seem to jump back and forth with no real point. I.e. we'll be watching William Shatner talking to some guy and suddenly - whoa! We're in a house! And then we're back to William Shatner! And now we're staring at a cow in a green pasture! (Oh wait, it's just William Shatner.) Don't bother with this. It isn't worth the time.

triple8 When I first saw "hand that rocks the cradle" I remember thinking this premise had been done before in a really chilling TV movie. Couldn't remember the title. For some reason I thought it was The nanny.(Haha). Well, it came back to me so here's my review of the babysitter.I can't call this anywhere near a good movie but I liked it when I saw it mainly because the whole "stalker movie" genre had not been overdone as of yet-or maybe I was just to young to care.At any rate-this follows a very similar premise to cradle-I guess Joanna was more a housesitter then a nanny, though I seem to remember it differently. It doesn't matter though because if you know the plot of hand that rocks the cradle you know the plot of the babysitter. For some reason, though-and maybe it was because of the then newness of the premise this TV movie scared the heck out of me.It is more chilling then cradle, less campy. Joanna, whose name I remembered after all this time, is genuinely frightening. I wouldn't mind seeing this again mainly because this was an early stalker movie and I'd like to see if it still chilled me as much.It's hard to do a complete review as the movie's a bit of a blur to me but I do remember the story as being dark and really creepy. I don't remember any gore-if it were to come out now I'm sure it'd be laughed at by many but back then, when the premise was still new it was pretty darn good thriller material, if not a genuinely good movie. For Genuine fans of cradle though, this is a must see.

cwillis_m This movie was pretty descent. A few times I wasn't sure where it was going, but it always seemed to keep me interested. It kept pulling me back in. I guess that is a way I could put it. I really like how the movie was photographed. It added to the overall mood of it.