I blame Spooky Season for giving A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting a shot. Saw it pop up as a Netflix Original and thought the title curious, potentially interesting, so I gave it a shot. It was decent for awhile but then slowly started to sag.

Babysitter’s Guide is about a babysitter whose charge is kidnapped by monsters, one of whom she encountered herself as a child. Soon she discovers there’s an international association of babysitters who routinely track and fight the monsters. Our hero is recruited to help retrieve the kidnapped boy and save the world from nightmares.

The movie starts fairly strongly for what’s obviously a movie aimed at kids, a kind of kid-friendly horror comedy. It has DNA from all over movies from some Ghoulies (or Gremlins) to some Drop Dead Fred (or Beetlejuice) to 007 movie spoofs, and more. It’s reasonably clever and it takes itself serious in a kind of knowing/winking way.

Unfortunately, the intro and early scenes are stronger than the resolution. The movie, simply put, starts to sag and try to do too many things in too short a time without crisp energetic editing. It falls apart trying to earn a satisfying conclusion. So, while I was on board with the movie’s reasonably clever premise and reasonably creative ideas, those couldn’t beat a poorly edited final act.

Which is a little too bad since the movie does try (even though you get the serious impression you’re watching a setup for at tv series or film franchise). I’m sure kids will love it but older kids (or grumpy adults) might find it unsatisfying. But, to be fair, I’ve seen worse and I’m not quite the target market.

Score: 69