There is no better occasion than now to revisit director Stephen Herek’s 1991 sleeper Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. It’s summer-ish, contemporary retroism has the movie’s keen sense of style looking relevant, and our species has not yet been wiped from the face of our planet. If you haven’t seen it, you should know that the dead babysitter is really just a jumping-off point—as a result, 17-year-old Sue Ellen Crandell (a naturalistically subdued Christina Applegate) seeks employment in fashion so that she can support herself and four siblings for the summer, while her mother is away cavorting in Australia with some guy. (Sue Ellen really will stop at nothing to keep their mother out of the country, even if it means an almost complete sacrifice of summer leisure for an office job that requires commutes in gridlock traffic.)
Scammy hijinks ensue, as does boxy ’90s fashion that is, to borrow a mangled phrase from Sue Ellen’s boss Rose, to die from, as does a romance between Sue Ellen and a fast-food delivery man, Bryan (played by Josh Charles, whom I can never decide whether I think is cute in this movie, or merely youthful). Domestically, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead did about $25 million at the box office (that’s a little over $50 million in today’s inflation-adjusted dollars), but it had a particularly hearty afterlife via video and cable, as these types of movies often do.
Is this movie good? Fuck yeah, it’s amazing! Well, if you ask one of us, it is. I have seen it, and somehow Megan hadn’t until she was made to watch it for this post. Join us as we revisit a teen flick that’s brimming with personality to the point of eccentricity.
RICH: If the task of divining between excellence and mere nostalgia is generally difficult when reexamining the relics from the past to which one still has an emotional attachment, in this case for me it is absolutely impossible. How am I supposed to objectively evaluate a movie I love that asks me to root for a young high-school grad who, to keep her negligent mother from returning from her summer trip to Australia, fudges a résumé (complete with a claim that she designed for Comme Des Garçons in Japan), drops it off, has a 15-second conversation with an executive in which they both mock the office receptionist, lands the job, realizes that she has no idea what she’s doing, steals a shitload of petty cash that’s at her disposal, and ends up saving the company (and paying back the petty cash) with her pure child’s eye for fashion? She gets hired from outside the company despite the office crawling with more qualified people??? (Kathy was all over that Q.E.D. report.)
The mother should’ve been arrested!
No, we’re asked to back Sue Ellen “Swell” Crandell because she is Christina Applegate, and because Christina Applegate was a big deal when this movie was released in 1991, thanks to the success of Married… With Children. And though I know better, though I know that mother should never have left for Australia in the first place (not with her house in such disrepair at least!), I know the Crandell children should have reported the death of their wicked babysitter Mrs. Sturak, who barks at the kids so as to approximate a PG-13 version of Full Metal Jacket’s Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, I know Swell does not deserve her job whatsoever (and that HR, magically absent from this movie, exists to tell her so), and yet I root for her. I just cannot help it.
This movie is probably in my all-time Top 10? Can you please help me determine whether it’s actually good or just feelings that make me think this?
MEGAN: After watching most of this film slumped on my couch and then finishing up the “climax” the next morning, I can’t really say if this is good or not, but my gut is telling me that it… isn’t? It’s a confusing movie to me, specifically because I had absolutely no idea what to expect. The babysitter is dead, she’s dead within minutes, and that action is what propels Christina Applegate into a rather enchanting workplace comedy with whiffs of empowerment? The mother should’ve been arrested! Nothing about this movie makes any sense! I was expecting either a caper, a weird crime movie, or uh, perhaps a horror film, but instead, I watched Christina Applegate delegate like a fucking professional while swanning around in some truly incredible clothing from the early ’90s. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy myself, but what I am saying is that I’m… confused?
If I had first watched this movie as a kid instead of as an adult, something about Swell’s career woman fantasy might have had more of an impact; alas, at the ripe old age of NONE OF YOUR FREAKIN BUSINESS (36), I am a career woman. I am, in fact, one year younger than the delinquent mother of the Caldwell brood—a woman whose desire to fuck off to Australia for an entire summer makes perfect sense to me now. If you lived in that house, would you want to stay? Why was the house so messy? Why was it literally falling apart? Questions about logic abound. What is it about this movie, aside from feelings, that you like so much?
RICH: Well, besides, oh, everything, it’s the little details. A poster of topless ’80s pop star Samantha Fox, the woman I credit for almost single-handedly informing me of the joy of slutaciousness, on the wall of Swell’s brother Kenny’s room, elicits such a strong gasping reaction from Mrs. Sturack as to imply it contributed to her heart attack. That is some powerful sexuality. I like when for no reason at all drag queens steal Mrs. Sturack’s Buick that the Crandells were driving around?
