My Babysitter’s A Vampire, a Canadian television movie, which later spun off into a TV series, focuses on a teenage boy who realizes that his little’s sister’s babysitter, whom he has a crush on, is a fledgling vampire. He is aided by his next door neighbor best friend, who has a crush on the babysitter’s friend, and discovers more interesting facts about the people and place that he has lived all his life. Both later aired on the Disney Channel.
I do not have cable, and I am clearly not the target audience. I know that I will watch anything with vampires, but please give me some credit because that is not the reason that I watched My Babysitter’s A Vampire. I put this movie in my queue after watching Bruce McDonald’s Pontypool and Hellions, two flawed, but interesting horror movies so I wondered what he would do with a straightforward scare like vampires.
My Babysitter’s A Vampire shows none of McDonald’s signature weirdness so while I came for his particular brand of oneiric, dadesque horror, I stayed as a vampire aficionado though if I had the opportunity to redo my life, this movie would not make the cut. It firmly plants its tongue in cheek, goes meta and openly ridicules the plethora of vampires marketed to teens in movies such as Twilight (Dusk) or The Vampire Diaries (The Bloodsucker Diaries) while throwing a couple of visual references to the initial TV adaptation of Salem’s Lot. Because the movie is thick with knowledge of vampire lore and vampires in media, it helped to make the movie somewhat palatable.
My Babysitter’s A Vampire’s fatal flaw is focusing on the person with the least interesting story. We later discover that all characters have some vaguely supernatural talent, but it is like making Buffy The Vampire Slayer and centering Xander except using a less personable actor. The most interesting character is the fledgling vampire. I was surprised that they cast a black woman in such a central role so way to go Canada! Her character constantly kicks ass and actually faces numerous moral dilemmas so her story is riveting whereas the main character plays the everyman.
By the way, that earlier dig about the acting was not directed at one particular actor. Everyone in My Babysitter’s A Vampire has a broad, sitcom, self conscious acting style instead of being naturalistic. The two male leads are actually quite adorable during a scene when they dance together joyously because they are at a senior party, and the main supporting actor who plays Benny had me cracking up over a screaming gag. Unsurprisingly the best actor in the movie, Joe Dinicol, plays the villain and has already successfully crossed over to the American TV market in brief supporting roles in such popular shows as Arrow and Blindspot.
For me, the central mystery at the heart of My Babysitter’s A Vampire is how the main character’s parents have enough energy to pursue so many hobbies and go out every night! Do they work? How do they have so much energy? Also I gave generous side eye to the show for merely suggesting that grandma smelled. That lady was put together, had better plans before her family made her cancel them and clearly wasn’t your father’s grandma. I wish that her storyline were introduced earlier because she was clearly the second most interesting actor and character.
The real villain was the fledging vampire’s best friend whom I never bought as a genuine nerdy, uncool girl so was not surprised with her character’s development. Her friend confides that she is going through a crisis, which clearly involves some sort of rapey scenario with her boyfriend, and her shallow self is annoyed that she is not going to the movies. Then she blows off her concerns as if they are nothing, and when she finds out that her friend was right, she not only makes the worst decisions, she actively tries to hurt her and chooses the trash, rapey dude over her friend and enjoys hurting others when given a taste of power. She was trash, and I don’t get why the show kept her as if people were going to be able to coexist with her evil ass. She is the kind of Canadian who wears a MAGA hat to show that the US doesn’t have an exclusive contract on working against your best interests in favor of being a jerk. She was the 53%.
The actual story behind the vampires was very textured, but largely underdeveloped considering the sinister implications of an over two century year old man with a penchant for teenage girls, especially considering after they reveal what his profession was in the nineteenth century. My Babysitter’s A Vampire probably didn’t want to become bombarded with viewer complaints, but they wrote the story that way. They ultimately pulled punches and punked out in the execution. The Star Wars references were cute.
I am not recommending My Babysitter’s A Vampire. There are so many better movies about vampires for kids, but if there were nothing else to watch except news and sports, and it came on tv, I wouldn’t rush to get the remote to turn it off. The TV series is only two seasons, and the jury is still out whether as a completist, I feel compelled to actively look for them so I can watch it. (Probably not.)