LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

azathothpwiggins A family is undermined by the cunning manipulation of a beautiful, young woman named Joanna (Stephanie Zimbalist). After insinuating herself into the family, she begins seducing the husband (William Shatner) and emotionally sabotaging the wife (Patty Duke). Knowing nothing of Joanna's extremely dark past, the family is unaware of just how dangerous she is, though the 12 year old daughter (Quinn Cummings) seems wiser than her clueless parents. Will they realize what Joanna is doing, before she causes irreparable damage, even death? Duke is great, and Shatner is less T.J. Kirk than usual. However, this is Zimbalist's movie, and she is the blackened sun at it's center. There's even a LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN moment on the lake! Mostly though, THE BABYSITTER prefigures the future POISON IVY, only in a more "family-friendly", made-for-TV form. Co-stars John Houseman as a doggedly suspicious neighbor...

JamieWJackson This had potential, and it actually did realize some of it. However, the dialog is hard to hear in places, and the editing is just bizarre, several times jumping from a tense moment straight to another scene without resolving anything.My biggest objection, though, is more fundamental: for the first two-thirds or so of the movie, the fascinating "babysitter" seems to have some kind of supernatural... something. It's never clarified what, but she seems to be almost mesmerizing people on occasion; at another moment, she is unfazed by a car nearly hitting her, almost as though she is in control of the situation more than the driver is. Then in the last third or so, that "something" seems to vanish and she is just a crazy young woman.Zimbalist is captivatingly beautiful here and seems game to bring her character to life, and the other players are all fine in their roles. However, the story just doesn't quite make sense in spots and the relationships feel hurky-jerky. A bit more time invested into the writing would have helped, as would a better job on the sound mixing and the editing. Lacking those things, I can only give this a 4, as I ended up just wondering what the point of this was. Still, if you're a fan of stalker/psycho movies, or of Shatner or Zimbalist (or anyone else here), you will probably enjoy this at least a little bit.

moonspinner55 Good acting by a solid cast makes this somewhat-familiar material worth slogging through, even though the issues it raises seem to get all fouled up. Patty Duke Astin plays a doctor's wife who has hired a mysterious young woman to care for her rather hapless daughter, which causes friction in their already-shaky household. Quinn Cummings, fresh off her stint on TV's "Family", has a few surprisingly strong scenes standing up to babysitter Stephanie Zimbalist, but Zimbalist's role is a wash-out. Her character isn't given the grand, juicy build-up that villains usually receive in television suspensers, but perhaps this time it was a mistake (director Peter Medak is so overly-cautious letting the pieces fall into place that he becomes unintentionally coy about the whole thing). The film is shrouded in murk; Medak, going for a low-key mood, doesn't allow the drama to take shape, and as a result the story and characters become lethargic blobs.

exitaza I love the players in this movie with all my heart, but what a poorly produced piece of work. There were whole scenes in that the dialog just simply disappeared into background noise, not that the plot was that hard to follow, but please.Stephanie Zimbalist was stunningly beautiful, Little Quinn Cummings was adorable (and acted impressively), Patty Duke played the emotional wreck of a housewife to a tee, and William Shatners hair was 6 inches tall. What else could you ask for?It would be interesting if someone would take this thing back to the editing room and make a movie out of it.