When four siblings conspire to surreptitiously dispose of a dead body, tweenage Melissa (Ayaamii Sledge) raises an important point about their caution levels: “It’s not 1991—there are cameras everywhere!” Why is her frame of reference 33 years ago, at least two decades before her birth? The same two reasons these kids are looking into body disposal in the first place: This is a remake of the 1991 movie Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
That is, the movie’s story remains nonsensical; redoing it in the first place isn’t so crazy, at least if you’re abiding by the maxim that when rummaging through back catalogs for remakes, it’s best to avoid the stone-cold classics. The original film is more of a VHS fave for a very particular demographic who didn’t mind its 1991 bait-and-switch. The advertising promised endless scenes of teen partying and mischief (the campaign seemed to be built around the miscreant brother nasally intoning “The dishes are done, man!” after skeet-shooting the household plates), while the movie itself delivered an ’80s hangover of a story about a young underdog (Christina Applegate) making it in the fashion business.
That’s more or less the story with the new version, a BET streaming original granted a theatrical release—though it gets off to a bumpy start that screams “hastily written TV production.” The movie seems uncertain about whether graduating high school senior Tanya (Simone Joy Jones) is socially awkward, desperate to prove her grown-up bona fides, irresponsible and in need of a life lesson, or anxious about her lack of direction (despite securing a spot at Howard University in the fall). On top of that muddled character writing, everyone is weirdly blasé about Tanya’s single mom (comic and podcaster Patricia “Ms. Pat” Williams) deciding to take an impromptu two-month yoga retreat for her mental health after quitting her job. The conceptual lumpiness isn’t helped by the fact that the movie often appears to be cutting around Williams, who seems genuinely uncomfortable around the other performers; crucial information about the mom’s trip is given to Tanya offscreen, then conveyed to her siblings secondhand. It feels like their mom is leaving for 12 hours or so, not the entirety of their summer vacation.
Tanya and her siblings—stoner Kenny (Donielle Hansley Jr.), gamer and consumer of “dark media” Melissa, and sweet oddball Zack (Carter Young)—are then faced with a monstrous babysitter (June Squibb, still the go-to for playing nasty broads disguised as sweet old ladies), who subsequently dies—not at Melissa’s hands, despite her facility for covering up a crime scene. Wanting neither to bother their mom (“leaving that place too soon could really mess her up,” Tanya earnestly mentions, describing a yoga retreat like it’s an extended hospital stay) nor to secure a replacement, the kids decide to get rid of the body and try to look after themselves for the summer. By the time the opening credits roll, nearly 20 minutes into the movie and over what vaguely resembles a Psycho homage, the whole project appears to have outstripped the original in pure misguidedness.
A general sense of confusion and discomfort over the movie’s intended audience lingers as it continues. The coarseness of some of its jokes and references seem targeted at adults, while the just-go-with-it plotting is more Nickelodeon-level fantasy. The ideal audience appears to be jaded and worldly 12-year-olds. Yet as Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead sends Tanya into an unlikely real-world job working for fashion maven Rose (Nicole Richie), something even stranger happens: It starts to get laughs.
Director Wade Allain-Marcus (best known for acting on Insecure) doesn’t necessarily build funny sequences, or even figure out what, exactly, Tanya’s hard-earned lessons actually are, or how they might be humorously conveyed. (Is she ever particularly good at this job she fakes her way into, or does her boss just like her for no reason? Is this movie a secret satire about pointless email jobs?) But there is funny dialogue, like little sister Melissa sighing “your generation and your labels!” at her older sister (and fellow Zoomer) when Tanya questions her apparent multitude of preteen relationships. And there are some inspired gags, like an admirably bizarre bit about Zack befriending a murder of crows. The courtship between Tanya and her one-time rideshare passenger Bryan (Miles Fowler) is charming; the rivalry between Tanya and her new coworker Caroline (Iantha Richardson) never goes over the top. Does this movie … get good?
That would probably be a stretch, given the unevenness and the story prone to explain-aways. Still, Jones and her on-screen sibs are a likable and confident gaggle of young performers, Richie evidently remains in her goofy mood from the wonderful short-lived sitcom Great News, and the whole production cheerfully skips through its own dopiness. Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead has honored its source material in the most fitting way possible: By making a movie that’s not very good but destined to be enjoyed anyway.
