Home Alone collides with Michael Haneke's Funny Games in this twisted Christmas-themed U.S. horror-comedy when a garden-variety suburban babysitting gig turns violent.
"When high school beauty Ashley (DeJonge) arrives to babysit precocious 12-year-old Luke (Levi Miller, Jasper Jones) it's the usual routine of ordering pizza and watching a scary movie, but that is where any semblance of normality ends. It would be a sin to even hint at what happens next to Ashley and Luke in their supposedly safe suburban neighbourhood. What we can say is that Better Watch Out generates white-knuckle suspense and pitch black humour while dishing out plot shocks galore that even hardened horror hounds won't see coming." (Sydney Film Festival)
This is an appropriately mean-spirited, reasonably original, horror movie that's lacking one major thing: gore. For the sort of thing Better Watch Out is going for, to work really well it needs to graphically show off inventive violence. It does not. Still, it's one of the better entries into the scary Christmas sub-genre, which is populated mostly with dire stinkers along with the masterpiece that is Silent Night, Deadly Night.
Full reviewSeems destined to become one of those Yuletide perennials for people who like their holiday-themed entertainment as perversely un-wholesome as possible.
Full reviewWorking within a heavily codified structure, [Peckover has] found a way to keep it fresh and exciting.
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While the film is more cartoonish than psychologically believable, it's willing to go to some genuinely uncomfortable places.
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A consistently surprising and unusually well-acted thriller, which says pertinent things about suburbia, holiday entertainment and toxic masculinity.
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Best described as Home Alone meets Michael Haneke's Funny Games, the sadistic horror comedy [Better Watch Out] is the kind of film that's tough to categorise but easy to enjoy.
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