Browse: Home / SIFF Dispatches: BETTER WATCH OUT

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray
  • Decade of the Month: Tom "vomas" Morton on GO WEST
  • Taco Break: Getting Thirty
  • Celebrating the Living: Adam Arkin
  • Attention Must Be Paid: Teresa Wright

SIFF Dispatches: BETTER WATCH OUT

Posted By Julius Kassendorf on July 5, 2017 in Reviews | 178 Responses

Guys, remember when you were 12 and the wind could give you an erection? Even though you were entering middle school, you might have had a babysitter because 12 year olds are filled with raging hormones and on the verge of being trustworthy and possibly make the dumbest decisions of any age group. Maybe you had a female babysitter whom you wouldn’t have minded getting busy with, but she was like 16 and had a car and was cool and out of your league (in part because she was 4 inches taller than your pre-growth-spurt self)? That’s the initial setup of Better Watch Out, a Home Alone-meets-Funny Games thriller/dark comedy where a horn ball adolescent boy wants to get in his babysitter’s pants when their home is invaded by a burglar.

Set during the Christmas holidays, when his parents go off to get drunk at a holiday party, 12-year-old Luke (Levi Miller) is left home with his hot teenage babysitter Ashley (Olivia DeJonge). Ashley is getting ready to leave town because her family is moving, and this is Luke’s last chance to finally score with Ashley. Unfortunately, Ashley tends to fall in love with a series of assholes (including her current boyfriend), and, besides, she’s also old enough where any Romeo and Juliet law starts to get sketchy. Then a burglar drops in the house, and things take a turn for the crazy really quickly.

If you think this is an innocent little Home Alone knock-off, think again. This one turns into Funny Games by the end of Act One where there’s a twist that leads down one of the grodier and more misogynistic holes this side of Deadgirl. Why yes, there will be a girl tied up and sexually intimidated because of course there is. So, brace yourself for that. *sigh*

Better Watch Out wants to criticize sociopathic male entitlement and the objectification of women, but it also wants to be fun and creepy and zany and hilarious. The challenge for the audience is whether it can sit with its discomfort at the sexual aggression long enough for the movie to finish shifting gears and sympathies. Or, does it? The movie ends on such a weird note that you can’t tell whether the movie is trying to be inappropriately cutesy or if it is setting itself up for a sequel or if it is just being that cynical. With the subject matter that Better Watch Out is toying with, it needs to choose a morality and stick with it to the bitter end.

If it feels like I’m being vague, it’s because the meat and potatoes of Better Watch Out is behind the twist that needs to be left vague. I can’t, in good conscious, write up a review of the first act and not warn people that sexual assault trigger warnings are firmly in place. It gets kind of rough. I also can’t say Better Watch Out is immoral enough to not recommend, and it is good enough to not spoil, but it’s not a great movie. So, you’re stuck with this non-committal nothingburger of a review because fuck it. Life sucks.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged Australia, Better Watch Out, Chris Peckover, Christmas, Dark Comedy, Horror, Seattle International Film Festival, Sexual Assault, SIFF, Thriller

About the Author

Julius Kassendorf

Julius Kassendorf is the founder of The-Solute, and previously founded The Other FIlms and Project Runaways in 2013. There, he dabbled in form within reviews to better textualize thought processes about the medium of film.

Previously, he has blogged at other, now-defunct, websites that you probably haven’t heard of, and had a boyfriend in Canada for many years. Julius resides in Seattle, where he enjoys the full life of the Seattle Film Community.

Julius’ commanding rule about film: Don’t Be Common. He believes the worst thing in the world is for a film to be like every other film, with a secondary crime of being a film with little to no ambition.

Related Posts

Year of the Month: Désirée I. Guzzetta on the Infectious Complexity of THE HOST→

Guest Review: Lydia Lomeli on X→

Year of the VAMPIRE WARS: BATTLE FOR THE UNIVERSE Previews→

Film on the Internet: SUPERHOST→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    30679 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    26393 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    18894 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    17663 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Yvonne, or: CASABLANCA In One Character and Three Scenes

    9551 views / Posted August 21, 2014
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray

    May 24, 2022 / William Taylor
  • Decade of the Month: Tom “vomas” Morton on GO WEST

    May 23, 2022 / Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott
  • Taco Break: Getting Thirty

    May 23, 2022 / Tristan "Drunk Napoleon" Nankervis
  • Celebrating the Living: Adam Arkin

    May 22, 2022 / Gillianren
  • The two Charlies

    Attention Must Be Paid: Teresa Wright

    May 21, 2022 / Gillianren

Last Tweets

  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray - https://t.co/eVomucZv0R, 6 hours ago
  • Decade of the Month: Tom “vomas” Morton on GO WEST - https://t.co/gJTrXZWtwa, May 23
  • Taco Break: Getting Thirty - https://t.co/1lXgpRGRdj, May 23

©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

Menu

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!