A Bring Out the GIMP (Girls in Merciless Peril) Movie Review


Babysitter Wanted

Reviewed by John Galt


Look, another John Galt review but not of a Powershotz production. This was another DVD I found while trolling the musty corners of the Hastings "New Releases" wall. Cover picture of a scantily clad babe suspended upside down on the cover? Check. Use of the word "babysitter" in the title? Check. Starring an actress that was hot? Check. Not rated PG-13? Check.

Babysitter Wanted (2008)

DVD CoverIn a nutshell, this is a movie about a couple who are raising the adolescent son of Satan, whose dietary restrictions limit him to eating the flesh of young virgin women. So the father, or maybe step-father, has to go out periodically and secure a young virgin woman, then dismember her and package up the flesh in serving-size Zip-Loc Storage Bags. Now, you might think the "babysitter wanted" part of this is how they find cannibalistic candidates; but actually, they need a babysitter to watch the hellspawn while they go out hunting virgins, because they try not to kidnap girls in the local area lest someone become suspicious. There's a lot of religious crap in this movie as well, mostly unfocused and ineffective and annoying, but what would you expect when the antagonist is the son of Satan?

The titular character is Angie, played by Sarah Thompson, who is the reason I watched this movie. Sarah Thompson played Eve, the hot, slutty evil go-between for Wolfram and Hart in the last season of "Angel". And she was so hot and so slutty. And I had hopes for this flick. But alas, Sarah has gained a few pounds and shed not a single article of clothing in this movie, nor did she wear anything revealing any bare flesh to speak of.

However, there were a few GIMP teaser moments in the movie. First of all, in the pre-title sequence, we get a slow tour of a body with black lines magic markered all over it. It is a dark scene, unfortunately. When the camera finally pulls back, we see and pretty young virgin in bra and panties laying on a table as someone unloads a bunch of sharp instruments. She is cloth gagged, with her wrists tied behind her back and her ankles tied together, and she is struggling according to the rules whereby she can wiggle and writhe but not actually, you know, do anything to escape. The unseen assailant holds her head straight and takes aim with a ball-peen hammer and whacks her (off camera) at which point we immediately start the titles. So first issue: who leaves a cow or a pig dressed in underwear for the slaughter? No one. And why would you do it for a virgin? Because as a GIMP filmmaker you're a stupid pussy, would be my guess.

First virginBlah blah blah. Boring plot with heavy handed foreshadowing and not a few deliberate misdirections, during which we are introduced to extraneous characters who have nothing to do with anything except maybe they were friends of the director.

Finally, Angie the babysitter stumbles onto the truth that her charge is the son of Satan who feeds on the flesh of young virgins. She discovers he's a hellspawn when she takes off his cowboy hat and sees his horns. No, really. She discovers he eats only the flesh of young virgin women when the father figure tells her, at which point we get GIMP-age.

Angie boundAngie gets captured and sits in the barn, tied hands behind her back and ankles in front of her, and cloth gagged. She is watching as the father dismembers the latest virgin. It is dark and she is fully dressed. But it is bondage.

Meanwhile, the latest victim is a blond wearing gray underwear, or something. She is drugged, and unmarked. So the guy commences to mark her up, and in a running commentary describes to Angie which parts the little hellspawn is most fond of. (The gluteous maximus, it turns out. Who would have thought?) The girl starts to come around and the guy gets really upset because he had to drug her and now drugs are in her system and will subsequently be in her flesh and it just bothers him that her flesh will be contaminated by evil drugs. His standards are so admirably high. Then he whacks her in the forehead anyway.

Holes in the heelsHe gouges holes in her heels (off camera but you hear the squishing), sticks hooks through the holes, and hauls her dead body upside down, Then, off-camera and to the accompaniment of more squishing sounds, he slices her open, cuts pieces out of her, and places them in Zip-Loc bags in scenes you probably will not be seeing in any Glad TV commercials. There is one kind of cool place where he has her hanging upside down and saws her in half between her spread legs. But since she is already dead at this point, it loses a lot of its awesome GIMP potential. I mean really, once he killed her, that was kind of it for GIMP.

Splitting the differenceMore predictable plot developments. Angie escapes. She is chased down by an ATV and whacked in the head so hard she goes flying forward. But she's still conscious, so she's punched in the face to knock her out. Then she is carried over the shoulder back into the barn. She has one of her ankles pierced and almost hooked, but she is still fully clothed. In fact, she is over-dressed. But that is pretty much it as far as GIMP goes.

Spoiler alert: Stuff happens and she ultimately escapes and the bad guys get theirs but not before more extraneous characters die and we are left with an ambiguous ending since horror directors think it is cool to never actually end a movie in case someone with more money than brains decides a sequel might be feasible.

This movie had potential, but squandered it in criminally under-lighted and over-clothed scenes. Some bondage. Some cloth gags. No nudity. Not even a glimpse of flesh from the principle actress. Darkly lit scenes. Too many close-ups. We had two victims who were hung upside down and we never got a full view of either of them. All of the GIMP stuff happened, for the most part, to dead bodies. If the victim isn't alive and suffering, it isn't GIMP. It is necro-something. This was a disappointing movie and a pathetic GIMP vehicle. I grade it D for disgracefully unrealized potential.

Don't be fooled. The DVD cover shows you an underwear-clad female body hanging upside down but the movie never does.

My Grade: D

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