Most of the time when it comes to remakes, I've at least heard of the original and probably even seen it. That doesn't mean that the remake is always better though. Here is a case where I only remember the premise of the original and can't recall anything about the movie itself to compare it to the remake. Maybe that's where this one caught a break in my eyes.
This flick annoyed me from the beginning. Well not quite the very beginning. The opening sequence wasn't bad as it set up this killer's MO. However, after that is when it goes downhill. The cops eventually come to the murder scene and the lead detective shows up. He's an older guy that looks like he's been around for years. Of course they never show the murder scene itself, but they show his reaction. He's so repulsed that he looks like he wants to puke. At his age, I find it hard to believe that whatever it was was so bad that even he couldn't stomach it.
Speaking of not showing anything, they did that all throughout this movie. There were a few murders that take place but we never see any blood and they never show how the people were offed. That's one good way to maintain a PG-13 rating.
Unlike other babysitter movies, the sitter's not totally alone in the house. The live-in housekeeper was there also. Until she was taken out, that is. The first thing I was thinking is what was the purpose of the babysitter in the first place if they're already paying Alice?
They try their best to hit us with all the cliche suspenseful camera views and especially the typical horror movie music. It's all good for effort; nevertheless, when you don't tread any new ground, you gets no props in my book.
Teandra had pointed out that what she didn't like about the movie is we never find out who the guy is. I think what she meant is it would have been nice if the guy was somehow linked to the sitter in some way. Why was he stalking her? Was he a psycho ex? The troubled son of the family she was sitting for? That's the one part of the movie I did like is that they don't expound on it. He's just some random, psychotic stalker and I'm fine with that. At any rate, I'm still thinking that the original was probably still better.
My rating: C-
