Like many others, I was initially drawn in by Emelie's transformation from perfect babysitter to weird creep to total nightmare. I even found her motivation, once it was revealed, to be totally fine and believable. It wasn't a groundbreaking twist, but the concept and eerie beginning alone are enough to make this a unique movie. Sarah Bolger also did a great job as the sinister and deceptive conwoman. However, I just couldn't get past the multiple plotholes, which were made even more egregious by the fact that they were so easily solvable (see below if you want to see my rant about the plotholes). I was annoyed and yelling at my screen by the time the movie ended, and the bizarre, tortured and yet somehow extremely boring climax didn't help.
**spoilers**
1. At no point do any of the kids call the cops, their parents, a family member, a neighbor, or ANYONE to get help. In the beginning, Emelie appears to disconnect the answering machine, but not the phone (which is a plothole on top of a plothole--I thought it was the phone at first, but the mom calls later and at least two of the phones are still connected, so...), but the kids still make no attempt to call anyone. Wtf?
2. The kids have unlimited opportunity to escape and/or to defy Emelie's orders and get help, particularly when their usual babysitter stops by. They never try anything except to make one sad attempt to pass the other babysitter, Maggie, a note. There's no reason why they couldn't have just blurted out "Help!", and Emelie could have dealt with it from there. Their unwillingness to speak up wasn't at all believable. Maybe if Emelie had been holding the gun behind her back to scare them into silence, it would have been, but they definitely had the upper hand in that moment with Maggie standing right at the door. Anyway, even when Jake escapes the house and meets up with his friend, neither boy bothers to find an adult, which defies all sense. Their neighborhhod was FULL of people. I can't for the life of me figure out why the writer didn't just have them live out in the country, and, perhaps, make the other boy's house far enough away that running home and alerting his mom would take long enough to allow for the denouement. Would have been an easy fix.
3. Sadly, in this world, there are way easier ways to steal or even to buy a child. I find it hard to believe Emelie wouldnt't have just stolen or bought a baby instead of putting herself through the trouble of finding out someone's babysitting plans, kidnapping and killing their real replacement, faking her identity, and then terrorizing a bunch of kids just to steal a boy who was already old enough to remember his real parents. I could buy it if I believed that Emelie was sufficiently nuts and obsessed with Christopher, but her weak explanation of her backstory as a bedtime story didn't convince me that she was that insane.
4. Her friend tries to buy her time by crashing his car into the parents' taxi and killing himself. Just... What?! Why?! How does he expect her to escape with Christopher without him and the car to help her? Is he daft? He couldn't have just tapped the damn bumper and then gotten out and made a huge fake fuss? He couldn't have flagged them down and pretended to need a jump? Hell, he even could have tried to pretend to be the taxi! And he had the real replacement babysitter's body in his trunk, which, if anything, would immediately alert the cops that something was amiss at the house and send them straight there, giving Emelie LESS time. It made absolutely no sense.
The other holes I could live with, but these disappointed me because they would have been so simple to address. It was just too much for me. Anyway, that's it. Rant over.
**spoilers**
1. At no point do any of the kids call the cops, their parents, a family member, a neighbor, or ANYONE to get help. In the beginning, Emelie appears to disconnect the answering machine, but not the phone (which is a plothole on top of a plothole--I thought it was the phone at first, but the mom calls later and at least two of the phones are still connected, so...), but the kids still make no attempt to call anyone. Wtf?
2. The kids have unlimited opportunity to escape and/or to defy Emelie's orders and get help, particularly when their usual babysitter stops by. They never try anything except to make one sad attempt to pass the other babysitter, Maggie, a note. There's no reason why they couldn't have just blurted out "Help!", and Emelie could have dealt with it from there. Their unwillingness to speak up wasn't at all believable. Maybe if Emelie had been holding the gun behind her back to scare them into silence, it would have been, but they definitely had the upper hand in that moment with Maggie standing right at the door. Anyway, even when Jake escapes the house and meets up with his friend, neither boy bothers to find an adult, which defies all sense. Their neighborhhod was FULL of people. I can't for the life of me figure out why the writer didn't just have them live out in the country, and, perhaps, make the other boy's house far enough away that running home and alerting his mom would take long enough to allow for the denouement. Would have been an easy fix.
3. Sadly, in this world, there are way easier ways to steal or even to buy a child. I find it hard to believe Emelie wouldnt't have just stolen or bought a baby instead of putting herself through the trouble of finding out someone's babysitting plans, kidnapping and killing their real replacement, faking her identity, and then terrorizing a bunch of kids just to steal a boy who was already old enough to remember his real parents. I could buy it if I believed that Emelie was sufficiently nuts and obsessed with Christopher, but her weak explanation of her backstory as a bedtime story didn't convince me that she was that insane.
4. Her friend tries to buy her time by crashing his car into the parents' taxi and killing himself. Just... What?! Why?! How does he expect her to escape with Christopher without him and the car to help her? Is he daft? He couldn't have just tapped the damn bumper and then gotten out and made a huge fake fuss? He couldn't have flagged them down and pretended to need a jump? Hell, he even could have tried to pretend to be the taxi! And he had the real replacement babysitter's body in his trunk, which, if anything, would immediately alert the cops that something was amiss at the house and send them straight there, giving Emelie LESS time. It made absolutely no sense.
The other holes I could live with, but these disappointed me because they would have been so simple to address. It was just too much for me. Anyway, that's it. Rant over.