I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Fantastic!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

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.

The story of a vicious bitter old lady babysitting should not have been cut so short. First of all, the previews in the movie theaters at the time made out most of the preview misleading the audiences to believe that the babysitter would take up a bigger part of the movie. Secondly, they set up several good scenes with the babysitter (Eda Reiss Meringue) (such as her angrily stopping letting the kids watch TV and making them write book reports, for example on the life of the aardvark) and then just dropped them. Third, the writers made the old lady drop dead before the oldest punk rock kid Kenny (Keith Coogan) ever even saw her. I guess that at least set up a rather amusing joke where after she died, Kenny saying "yes, she was a great babysitter". I liked that. Kenny saying that after he first of all, he never saw her, and secondly, she was hardly great. Also sort of amusing was the implication that the old lady seeing Kenny's bedroom is what made her die. A bedroom that was super messy, with heavy metal playing, posters of half naked girls (Samantha Fox (she was a hot late 80s girl)), and with stashes of weed visible. I liked Kenny, but him continuously yelling "rock and roll!" was so cliché, even back then. Christina Applegate I always found super hot, after always watching her on "Married with children". Some of this movie was pretty innocent and feel good, but some of it was dumb too. When the kid's mom goes on a two month summer vacation to Australia and leave the kids with a sadistic old lady, much to Christina's (Sue Ellen, Sue El, Swell; her name shortened) protest, we get a ten minute long tops session of the babysitters scenes before she dies. Then, after a couple more amusing bits of the kids leaving a trunk with her body in it with message "nice old lady inside, died of natural causes" at the funeral home, and then too late realizing that they left the money on the dead babysitters person, they are all stuck and broke with almost two more months before mom comes home. Then the remainder, the main story of the film starts, Swell needing to work to support everyone for the next two months. Kenny was selfish there refusing to find a job too making Swell take on that full role. But I guess Kenny was needed to stay home and watch the little ones, even though he doesn't do a good job of that, getting stoned with his buddies in his room while one of the little ones plays on the roof, falls off and breaks his leg. The main story with Swell working at an office is pretty good but not real good, as of the short section of working at Happy face's (Happy face is the goofy overly eager manager) Clown Dog fast food where she meets Brian (Josh Charles). Her and Brian have a sort of cheesy love story (they hang out at the beach and also (please!) bounce around a department store on big bouncy balls, the type you see 7 year olds on). Brian also thinks his Clown Dog van makes him a hero when he comes to pick up the stranded kids outside of Chucky Cheeses when (chortle), Liza Mineli and Maralyn Monroe (well, thieves in those celebrities' masks) steal the kid's (well, the "borrowed" babysitter's) car. Brian gets suspicious of Swell cause she won't tell him where she works, reason being he's Karen's (Jayne Brook) brother. Karen is the super bitchy receptionist would-be executive assistant at the clothing company that gets her job taken away from Swell. Swell got the high level job through lying big time on her resume. Karen obviously now has a pretty major grudge towards Swell. I sort of understand Karen being sore with Swell since she pushed, as a newbie, ahead of someone who's been with the company for a while and grabbed a high level position away from her who was someone that the executive position was previously promised to. But Karen had already been unnecessarily rude to Swell before that happened when Swell innocently went to the wrong place to apply for a receptionist job. Executive Rose (Joan Cassidy) was initially the one who was gonna promote Karen to be her assistant but desperately didn't want to due to Rose admitting that Karen is usually a very difficult person to get along with. So Karen still needs to take some responsibility for having had such a bad attitude towards people. It's still not right to break a promise to someone you promised a promotion to, but there's no excuse for Karen being such a bitch in general to begin with. I'd say both parties were at some fault here. Another sleazy character was Gus (John Getz), a guy that Rose was involved with but decided to start hitting on Swell behind her back. Gus was sleazy since A), Swell made it clear she wasn't interested in him but he still pursued her anyway, and B), Gus was cheating on Rose. You can see Gus's sleaziness also when he takes Swell to a fancy Beverly Hills restaurant for lunch, buys her martinis (waiter snobbily to Swell: "sweet..or..dry?") and tells Swell in a sultry slobbering way "you will love the chicken here, it's very 'tender'". A couple other things kinda dumb: Swell taking the whole petty cash box home and the younger kids stealing lots of cash from it to buy expensive things like a vast entertainment system. The other dumb thing was Brian sobbing and pleading to take Swell back over the loud speaker of his Clown dog van outside of Swell's house completely oblivious to a big party with lots of people going on. Quite ridiculous don't ya think?

Rambunctious teenagers, left alone with a cantankerous guardian while Mom is away, must fend for themselves after the old crone croaks (they use the dirty dishes for target practice: "The dishes are done, man!"). Airheads antics for an undiscriminating target audience, although Christina Applegate approaches the limp material with a dry resolve which is admirable and appealing; playing the eldest of the colorful clan, she rises far above the script and general handling. Second-half of the movie takes a sharp turn into big-business waters which, while too klutzy to be called satire, nearly achieves a certain unsteady charm. *1/2 from ****