A Babysitters Guide to Monster Hunting- A Randomfish Review
Did you like the remake of Ghostbusters where there were female Ghostbusters? Well then you’ll love the all female remake of Monster Squad...
Is that accurate? Kind of. It feels like that right from a main character who believes in monsters, a villain who wants to bring together an army of monsters and of course sometimes the most random of moments. Although it isn’t an actual remake and it is it’s own thing want to make that clear.
What’s the story? Kelly Ferguson (played by Tamara Smart) is the kid at school who is apparently tortured by the kids of the town because she apparently saw a monster in her room and everyone just calls her “Monster Girl” oh and she skipped a grade because she’s smart, thanks to the exposition teacher (or maybe he’s the math teacher I forget)
Okay first thing to dissect is this..... WHY?! Why are the kids still torturing her about THAT? First off these are teenagers there would be plenty of gossip around town I’m fairly sure and secondly this doesn’t appear to be a massively small town so this type of thing wouldn’t be as well known as it is! There is the generic bully girl played by Anisa Harris who just picks on her coz she’s nerdy and weird but... again this feels very pointlessly generic... haven’t we evolved our bullies since then?
Kelly then gets’ guilt tripped to babysit her Mum’s boss’s kid because her Mum just assumed that she would be doing nothing ever and that she wouldn’t be trying to grow up and move on with her life like going to a party that was randomly announced in the hallway by some dude... I mean I can’t exactly say that’s it’s a bad scene either just convenient and to be honest if we sinned movies for being convenient then we’d just hate all movies (right CinemaSins?) and that the dude that is clearly the hot guy at school said he’d go and Kelly now wants to go in order to impress him and steal him away from Anisa Harris (yes the character has a name but she is so bland and forgettable why should I remember that character’s name?) but she goes to the boss’s house to babysit the kid named Jacob Zellman (Wow, I’m starting wonder if his mother is anyway related to Zelda or Hilda Spellman and just changed their names out of embarrassment) with the mother leaving behind a massive set of insane rules. However we learn that Jacob sees monsters just like Kelly did and while Kelly didn’t end up being taken by the monsters Jacob definitely does... okay now with the designs of the “Toadies” as they’re called in the film that’s not bad... what makes me laugh however with the rise of the villain of the film called Grand Guignol played by Tom Felton (yes THAT Tom Felton as if there’s any other) being a leader of some kind of boogiemen type of monster I began to wonder if we were about to get a modern take on the song “Dance Magic Dance” all of a sudden.
We then get introduced to the films’ resident badass on a scooter (not a motorbike because that doesn’t equate badass anymore apparently) who is Liz played by Oona Laurence who turns up with all the information and starts essentially dumping exposition on us! From names of monsters to the book that she has to read to understand everything about the monsters and all of this completely cavalier while carrying a baby on her back. After chasing down one of the toadies they bring it back to their headquarters where we actually get an idea why the film is called this; A Babysitters Guide to Monster Hunting where we learn that apparently this organization has existed for hundreds of years. We see pretty quickly that the writer of the book also wrote the screenplay as he just says things while assuming that the people who’ve read the book are watching and everyone else be damned.... well I am part of everyone else and I say “No! You be damned for once!” We then meet our resident variety of side characters who will do next to nothing; Fat Kid (I mean Curtis Critter played by Ty Consiglio), Cassie Zhen (played by Lynn Masako Cheng) and Berna Vincent (played by Troy Leigh-Ann Johnson) I say their names and characters now because to be honest they do a little behind the scenes stuff and try to give themselves focus but the crux of the whole thing rests on Kelly and Liz (who if you couldn’t tell from the attitude and the “hog” has a dark backstory) so they go off to get Jacob back who is being forced to bring his dreams to life which is why Draco Felton was trying to get him and why he was trying to get Kelly all those years ago too (yeah, that was a thing apparently Draco Felton has been stalking kids for years, there there’s an image in your fangirl minds about Draco Malfoy stalking kids) and so they go off to try and get a creature that can help them get the pieces together to take on and destroy Draco Felton and so they go to.... any guesses anyone? Yes you are correct madam it was the party that Kelly wanted to go to! They go there, words are exchanged, the boy that Kelly likes is confused but impressed I guess with the way she is as herself, generic bully is put in her place by Liz and, despite her saying that she wouldn’t go to the party while she was supposed to be babysitting Jacob there are videos on Instagram of her jumping off of a higher floor in someone’s home... that’ll look great Kelly well done also you wanna relax after jumping down a floor and landing on your face? No? Okay what do I know? They collect what they need and the nerd crew at the base (told you I’d forget their names they’re so forgettable those.... who?) make a device that Kelly can use to essentially punch Draco Felton to death (PUNCHING PEOPLE: As long as it’s monsters, it’s okay) they travel to a cat monster type person who traps them, LIz gets taken away by Felton and Kelly, who has been shockingly okay with this whole ordeal just gets up and heads for the lair on Liz’s scooter (sure she wont’ mind, at least fill up the tank you greedy whatsit) where we had learnt previously that Liz lost her brother to Draco Felton (see? Dark backstory) and he had hypnotized her with his lullaby even though we were shown that NEVER HAPPENING until we got to Liz so SCREW YOU MOVIE! Kelly snaps her out of it, they punch Draco Felton to death, Jacob is reunited with his mum just in time (Ferris Bueller would be proud) and Kelly begins her initiation into the Babysitters club and the ending is her looking at a book one of Draco Felton’s relatives, not going to the movies with a boy (because girl gotta save the world yo) and she’s feeling happy about this life of danger and madness she must now lead..... obviously this is baiting for a sequel, will it get one? I dunno we got a sequel to the Kissing Booth for crying out loud, something that didn’t need to happen in the least yet it did!
So what did I think of it? Well it’s trying to be like the monster hunting, wise cracking monster kid movies of old, hence why I referenced monster squad but does that make it good? I mean the acting isn’t awful, Tom Felton does a pretty good job with that role and it did take me a while to realise it was him under the makeup. Tamara Smart and Oona Laurence were fine as leading ladies although Oona felt like she should have been older when playing this role, just to show the difference in age and to show what the life could do to you. As it stands it feels like when Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy meet in Breakfast club if they went hunting for Judd Nelson after he turned into a werewolf or something.
But with all of it being said, this film was funny in places, tried to offer a sense of scariness that needed to go a bit further with it’s ideas
I’d say a solid 7/10 (yes I do ratings)
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