The Sitter has quite a few ingredients that usually make for a mindlessly entertaining horror movie: there's a pretty girl in peril, a shower scene (actually, two shower scenes and a bath!), a cat scare, crazy locals, a dream within a dream (actually, I think there were two of those as well), some sex, and one of the characters says "I'll be right back", which means that they won't. Unfortunately, despite all of this, the film doesn't really succeed because they forgot one very important thing: a decent plot.
After psychology student Charlotte (Aisling Knight) has accepted a three day stint as a cat-sitter for a strange couple who live in a remote country house, the film goes absolutely nowhere for most of the remaining running time. The three days pass (slowly), with Charlotte suffering restless nights and hearing strange noises in the house, but otherwise nothing very notable happens (except, of course, for Charlotte's ablutions, and her sexy scene with boyfriend Seth, which are a welcome diversion from the tedium). Then, when the three days are up, Charlotte is abducted and tied up by the religious weirdos that live next door, who say that the girl is in great danger from the couple who hired her.
Charlotte escapes from her captors, only to find out that they were telling the truth: her employers turn out to be crazy cultists who intend to offer her to their hideously deformed son, who looks as though he might be possessed by a demon. At this point, I wonder why we had to wait three days for any of this to happen: if the couple had wanted to offer Charlotte to their son, why not do it straight away? Likewise, why did Charlotte's rescuers leave it three days before trying to whisk the girl to safety? And if they knew what was going on, why didn't they just call the police?
It's lazy writing and makes for a frustrating watch, a shame because Knight isn't a bad actress and deserved to be in a better film.
4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.
