BETTER WATCH OUT

ONE STAR A routine baby-sitting assignment goes horribly wrong when young love is spurned.

Starring Levi Miller, Ed Oxenbould

COMEDY HORROR #BETTER WATCH OUT

A baby-sitting assignment goes horribly wrong when tween-love is spurned. That’s to say, Luke and Garrett (JASPER JONES’ Levi Miller and PAPER PLANES’ Ed Oxenbould) are horny twelve years old, best mates who’ve discovered weed, porn and the curves of their pretty babysitter. Luke wants more than a big-sister relationship with her, but he’s out of her league. It’s an interesting set up that changes gear when Garrett pranks the pair with horror-house staples and more than a nod to SCREAM.

What should draw Luke closer to his beau sends her looking elsewhere. He snaps and seeks revenge, which might be halfway funny if it wasn’t so unrelentingly cruel. What follows is vicious, and given it’s at the hands of a twelve year old, considerably more distressing than it might otherwise be.

Maybe I’m missing the point, but really, is there anything even remotely funny about a mentally unstable boy who acts on his psychotic instincts to kill his best friend, his baby sitter, her part-time and ex-boyfriends? No, there’s not. But that’s what passes for entertainment as Luke goes ‘full HOME ALONE’ in lustful vengeance. Smashing someone’s head to a pulp with a bucket of yellow paint would be horrific enough in FARGO, but in a teen comedy? A visual quip in which paint and blood merge like hotdog sauce underlines the sentiment at play here.

Fans, and no doubt there are fans of this ‘genre’, will have a feast. If gratuitous sadism at the hands of a deranged boy with a thing for torture porn is your thing, knock yourself out. The rest of us will be wondering how this video nasty was ever given a green light, and why Miller or Oxenbould signed up for it in the first place.

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