You need to watch the best cult thriller sequel on Netflix ASAP
This killer queen is guaranteed to blow your mind.
Cult thrillers are very much a one-and-done situation.
Once a movie reveals a cult was behind everything (or the protagonist escapes a cult’s clutches), there’s not much more to the story. However, that’s not always the case.
2017’s The Babysitter revealed the villains were secretly part of a satanic cult, which made for a great plot twist. Now, the cult is no longer a secret, and everyone knows about it. So, what do you do when your cult movie gets picked up for a sequel? One word: gaslighting.
The Babysitter: Killer Queen, a 2020 Netflix Original film directed by McG, is a masterclass in building on a twisty plot while still surprising an experienced audience.
Killer Queen is a sequel to The Babysitter, a classic home-survival story following Cole, a middle schooler trying to defend himself and his home from a satanic cult led by his babysitter.
The sequel picks up two years after the first film ended, and it shows a reality cult films rarely include in their plots: the fallout. Because the entire cult was killed, there was no way to prove there ever really was one. Now Cole is treated like he’s crazy. The only person who could back him up is his best friend Melanie, but she’s a high schooler with a hot new boyfriend and isn’t really interested in Cole anymore.
So when Cole gets invited by Melanie for a lake trip, the last thing he expects is for her to secretly be part of the same cult he fell victim to years earlier. And that’s only the start of the surprises, which involve disintegration, weed, a Thelma and Louise reference, and a crossbow.
This time around, Cole’s ally is Phoebe, the new girl at school who at first seems like the immediate choice for a new villain. Over the course of running for their lives, Cole starts to see sides of her he actually likes. This leads to possibly the most entendre-filled sex montage made up entirely of a dance number and stock footage.
Ken Marino finally gets his due as Archie, Cole’s dad.
The Babysitter: Killer Queen involves all the Scott Pilgrim-esque stylization of the original film but stretches this aspect to the extreme, using VHS taped flashbacks and Street Fighter-style graphics in the combat scenes. This film even realizes how little the original used iconic comedy actor Ken Marino and gives his character as Cole’s dad far more to do.
Whether or not you’ve seen the original film, this Netflix movie is a riotous good time, combining 70s and 80s aesthetics (Cole spends the first act of the movie in a Harold and Maude brown corduroy suit) with modern references for a story that feels both nostalgic and new.
The Babysitter: Killer Queen is now streaming on Netflix.
