It's Halloween and some guy is kidnapping babysitters, torturing them, and killing them. He sends pictures of the dead to Erin who thinks they're pictures of Halloween costumes. Years ago Erin and these girls formed a babysitters club. One Halloween night two of them went home and one of them never came back. The surviving girl is traumatized and thinks she sees the killer everywhere, she's now some tough punk chick. Erin is friends with a kind old guy neighbor who's retired and a widower.
This Halloween, Erin's mom leaves for a party and Erin invites three friends for a slumber party. They play the Ouija board to see if they can communicate with the dead girl and find out who her killer is. Punk chick leaves in disgust. It's not long before the killer makes it into Erin's house and takes the three remaining girls. But this time he has a sick proposition for the three. One of them is bound to a chair and if the other two don't kill her he will kill them all. At this point, punk chick returns because she's worried. The identity of the killer is revealed and the reasons for the killings as well.
Babysitter Massacre is a surprisingly strong movie. If you've watched Alternative Cinema's other offerings you know to expect a low budget movie, uneven acting, troublesome sound and poor cinematography. As I was watching the previews I worried as some of them look just like the movies by AC from 10 years ago. But this one is good. Writer/director Cuoto always had potential. His previous work always was a step beyond others of its kind. And I'm glad as years have gone byy the quality of his work has steadily progressed. Babysitter Massacres looks good, has good audio, and good acting for the most part. Not only that but it has a good story and some developed characters. Many filmmakers claim to be horror fans but they give us nothing but sanitized formulaic horror movies. Babysitter Massacre is done in the spirit of the 80s/90s "The ______ Massacre" movies. It has gore, violence, nudity, characters to root for, a striking death scene.
Of course this movie as C horror movie has weaknesses too. Some are expected for the budget and filming conditions. You can always ask for better image/lighting/audio, acting, sets, effects, and so on with these movies. Perhaps more surprising is how short this movie is. Too short. It would have helped to tell us more about the early victims. We only learn about the first one and a bit about another one as well. But the other scenes are just some random girl that's grabbed and put on the victim's chair. The punk chick is a bit to mean and tough, they could have defined her role as the heroine a bit more. Overall a success of a movie and I hope there will be sequels.
