Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Excellent but underrated film

Awesome Movie

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

What a fun movie this was! Christina Applegate was quite famous at the time from her starring role in the hit television series "Married with Children". She was the sexy sister in that show but in this movie she's much less of a party girl and is the responsible kid in the family, keeping everything together after their mom leaves town and the babysitter passes away. She's still sexy, just not a party animal haha. Anyway the babysitter dies and they don't want to tell their mom what happened so they won't ruin her trip or their summer alone to party at their house, so they keep it all a secret. Not a genius film by any measure but it's a lot of good, mindless fun.

When Mom Crandell decides to take the Summer off for an Australian vacation without her children, she hires a babysitter to oversee things. Mom is barely out of the country when the babysitter turns up dead. The kids, led by 17 year old Sue Ellen or "Swell" (Christina Applegate), decide they can take care of themselves. Using a copied resume, Swell is soon on her way up the career ladder in the fashion industry. With little help at home from her siblings, a new boyfriend, a failing company, and co-workers out to get her, Swell's got her hands full if she's to successfully navigate her Summer.I don't think I've seen Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead in something like 20 years. I was happy to discover that, for the most part, the film holds up well. The comedy still works. Swell's interactions with her co-workers are often very funny. I got a real kick out of seeing a young David Duchovny working to thwart Swell. Or the way Swell pulls the wool over her boss's eyes time after time. Good stuff! The exception is Gus (John Getz) repeatedly hitting on Swell. Really cringey. I've always enjoyed Christina Applegate and here she's as good as ever. I wish she would have done more of this kind of film in the 90s. It suits her. I'm guessing that her role in Married with Children negatively typecast her. Other big pluses in this movie are some child actors who can actually act, life lessons that aren't driven home with a heavy hand, and some nice musical selections. The ending is something of a head scratcher. Even after being discovered as a fake, Swell is offered, but turns down, the chance to continue her career. Why? It's never made sense to me. Still, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead is a solid movie. Another thing I really enjoyed while watching Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead were all the late 80s / early 90s trappings. Shoulder pads, bright colors, big hair - the nostalgia just flowed over me. But the thing that really stood out was all the smoking. I forgot how much people used to smoke in movies. Seeing "17" year old Swell smoking non-stop really brought that home. You wouldn't see that today. It's definitely a product of its time.

This is a very clever movie. It is not one that would go down as a classic movie, but it is still very clever and somewhat original. On one hand the movie is about the teenage desire to be free and be able to do what they want all through summer. On the other hand it is about a group of kids who are rudely thrust into the adult world and suddenly discover that life isn't the party that they expected it to be. The mother of five children is going on a holiday to Australia during summer. The kids expect that they will look after themselves, but what they don't know is that their mother hired a babysitter. From the first instances in the movie we see that the kids are lazy, insolent, and generally don't care about anything and are not willing to help. The babysitter on the other hand is incredibly totalitarian and forces the kids into line. That is until she see Kenneth's room and dies of a heart attack because of it. The children think that this is great until they realise they have no money. The Babysitter had the money on her when they dumped her at the morgue, and thus they have no food and no money for the two months that their mother is away. The solution is that Sue-ellen or Kenneth get a job. Sue-Ellen looses the toss and must work. After working at a Clown Dog restaurant and hating it, Sue-Ellen makes up a resume and gets a job as an Executive Assistant to the Vice-President at a uniform design company. What starts off as a thrill for Sue-Ellen suddenly pushes her into the world of adulthood. She must deal with jealous employees of whose job she stole and fend of the sleazy advances of a co-worker named Gus. I guess we can delve deep into what happens in the plot because there is always something happening. Sue-Ellen, who is the main character, is not only trying to cope in an adult world with a naive attitude, but she is also trying to hold onto a boyfriend while trying to hide the fact that she is masquerading as a 28 year old, and the fact that the receptionist who hates Sue-Ellen is the guy's sister does not help. What we see though is how the characters grow. Sue-Ellen begins to discover what it is like to be a mother. Her mother knows that her children steal cash from her, but Sue-Ellen, in her naivety, does not expect this and is ripped off over three thousand dollars. The house becomes more messier as the trash piles up while the kids do nothing. Kenneth, who spends his time getting stoned with his friends, is also slowly thrust into adulthood, and quite reluctantly at that. It is only when they are faced with a long time in gaol that they begin to rise above what they were. By the end we see that Sue-Ellen, who wanted to waste the summer away on the beach, has now come to understand what life is really about and has made her decisions while Kenneth realises that school is not a bludge and that his results are important. He goes from a messy druggie to a respectable gentleman who ends up with a woman that he could never have. The final scene is clever with their mother returning home to a party, but not any sort of party. The cliché is that parents walk in on a wild drug party where the music is loud and people are drunk and behaving like hooligans. In this movie the party is very sophisticated with many respectable people and a lot of money floating around. Though quite shocked at what is actually going on, it is still a party. Yet we discover that Sue-Ellen's and Kenneth's attitude to their mother has changed. In the end, it seems that everybody has forgotten that the babysitter ever was there, including the audience. Favourite Quote: She was the best friend that I ever had. You never even knew her. Yes, but she left us all of her money.

This is a very average movie with a very, even for that time, tired old plot. Not unbelievable, mind you, but you have seen this story in sooo many mid-80s comedies, the worst being "The Secret of My Success" with Michael J. Fox. That movie was insanely farcical, though.Here, the farce is toned down. There is an extremely off sequence at the start which involves the title of the movie. It doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the story. It is more of the Marx Bros. screwball comedy variety, where the rest belongs more in the vein of family comedy.Christina Applegate, who is a smart woman, played a very dumb blonde on the hit sitcom "Married with Children" as most everybody knows. She finally got a part where she was serviced well. Not that her character here is a genius, but she gets to play all tangents: Surly, upbeat, successful and finally brought down. Sorry to say that the movie isn't that compelling as she is. There is an abundance of stock characters, like the one played by John Getz and even the one played by the mostly appealing, Joanna Cassidy. I loved her in Who Framed Roger Rabbitt and she had a great recurring character on Boston Legal as Denny Crane's scheming fianceé. The reason I find her a stock character is that she appears to be a smart woman but is brought down by her inability to see through Sue Ellen (Applegate) at the very beginning. Then again, if she did, the movie would be over.There are some good characters, like the one played by Keith Coogan. He definitely shows range as he is playing two characters with equal aplomb, the loser and the reformed. I did find his transformation believable. Applegate's transformation is a little forced. Yes, we know that she has to make amends to all the people she did wrong, including her mother. It sounds like a John Hughes coming of age tale, and you know what? It is. But just because something worked for him, doesn't necessarily mean that it is any better the second, third, fourth time.