The first third of Better Watch Out sets up a great home invasion movie that quickly turns into a hostage situation film, and not one you would expect. The theme of the movie is affluence. If Kevin McCallister from Home Alone was turning 13 and an only child the character of Luke from this movie would be him. Luke is the type of kid whose parents think he is the greatest thing since sliced bread and can do no wrong, that his friends he has a bad influence on are having a bad influence on him. He is the 13 year old version of someone like Brock Turner and even shows tendencies toward being that type of person as the film goes on. There are many twists and turns along the way and the film is bolstered by standout performances by Olivia DeJonge and Levi Miller. While not necessarily the most Christmas-like film the decorations in and around the house give it that atmosphere. The movie in a way feels like a deconstruction of something like Home Alone with some of the myth busting and references it has to it.
Synopsis: On a quiet suburban street, a babysitter must defend a 12-year-old boy from intruders, only to discover it's far from a normal home invasion.
The red and fancy font in the beginning gives the movie a certain feel. The scenes with children destroying snowmen and getting into snowball fights goes with the rest of the movie as it is about a child not being as innocent as he seems. The story focuses on Luke (Levi Miller) the son of Robert (Patrick Warburton) and DeAndra (Virginia Madsen). Luke has a crush on his babysitter, Ashley (Olivia DeJonge). He has plans with his friend Garrett (Ed Oxenbould). to try to woo her that night when she comes to babysit.
When Ashley comes over Luke starts to make his move. He grabs some champagne from his parents stash and starts drinking in front of her. She tries to take it from him but she is preoccupied with texts from her boyfriend, Ricky (Aleks Mikic). Eventually Luke tries to kiss her but she rejects him and says it is inappropriate. There are signs of a home invasion. They start getting phone calls and eventually the door is left open. The phone lines and internet go down. A pizza delivery shows up when no one ordered one. There are some suspenseful sequences and great payoffs where Ashley finds an inflatable Santa near the window that wasn't there, or they set off a toy in Luke's closet while hiding. I really like how this home invasion is set up and watching it again you try to look for foreshadowing of the twist that comes.
Early on I liked some setups and foreshadowing for later. The pencil near Luke's door which according to DeAndra will tell if he sleepwalks or not. DeAndra says that Garrett is a bad influence on Luke, which is laughable by the end of the movie. There are some fun moments between Virginia Madsen and Patrick Warburton, two experienced actors giving this movie some pathos. The scene where he shows her these little Christmas socks he has and he makes a reference to it being "meterosexual," and she corrects him saying "metrosexual," is amusing.
Spoiler Section
As Luke and Ashley are hiding in the closet, Ashley notices something odd about the height of the intruder and what he is wearing...Luke's clothes! She believes the intruder is Garrett and their cover is blown. Luke had staged the break in hoping it would make Ashley scared and get her closer to him after he saved her. Luke makes these mistakes throughout he movie where his plans seem smart on the surface but very amateur. Later we see the toy they rigged up when Garrett is shot and it almost seems funny that you couldn't predict what was coming. As Ashley walks off mad at Luke he slaps her and she falls down the stairs. She is tied to a chair, a place she will be for the rest of the movie. Eventually Luke and Garrett call Ricky whom Luke eventually kills by doing the Home Alone myth busting with the paint cans. Luke wanted to know if someone would just get pushed back like they did in the movie, but the cans make his head explode upon impact. The way the red blood mixes with the yellow paint is a nice touch. Makes it look like mixed ketchup and mustard on a burger which may be what it was. Luke then calls Ashley's ex-boyfriend Jeremy (Dacre Montgomery) and stalls him by making him write an apology that Ashley apparently wants. He kills him by tying a rope around his neck near a tree and driving the lawnmower, hanging him. Ashley eventually convinces Garrett to help her escape but Luke shows up and shoots him. There is some really clever writing here as Luke's handgun from earlier didn't have any ammo...but Garrett's shotgun does. Luke eventually stabs Ashley and makes everything look like a break in, being careful to make sure the pencil stays up near his door, taking his pills, and turning on his white noise machine. Ashley, however uses the duct tape she was confined with to seal the wound on her neck and she gives Luke the finger while going onto the ambulance. The movie ends with a post-credit scene of Luke wanting to go see Ashley in the hospital.
There are more things I enjoyed about this movie. Luke and Ashley are both resourceful. Luke seems to underestimated by everyone. Everyone thinks he is innocent until it is too late. He manages to hit Ricky with a baseball bat. That is a funny scene because the first hit doesn't do the trick and Luke gets all scared when Ricky gets up and is able to best him physically. Ashley relies more on knowledge and cleverness to take advantage of Luke. During the scene where they play truth or dare she brings up that Luke killed Garrett's hamster. Something he said was an accident later admitting he enjoyed it. Luke shows many signs of progressive sociopathy throughout the film and by the time the stuff happens with the paint cans he is so consumed with what he is doing that he only worries about what his parents could find out. He isn't concerned about murder, but with the smell of marijuana in his house. I do enjoy how anytime Levi Miller has to raise his voice, his voice cracks. The sequence at the end with Luke having to make sure everything checks out is great. Again, resourceful he uses a tracker to track his parents' phone. He substitutes a different pencil from the one near his door to compensate for the wound in Ricky's face. He climbs out the window near his room and into it from the roof in order to keep the pencil up. Everything Luke does during the home invasion sequence is creepy in retrospect. The way he keeps touching Ashley during the whole thing is gross as you see it again knowing what happens. She even calls him out for it saying what kind of kid thinks saving someone from a staged break in gets you to second base.
There is even more to some of these characters too. Ricky and Jeremy, especially Ricky don't seem like bad guys. Just teens going through typical teen stuff. I do like the moment where Ricky uses the flowers as a way for Luke to open the door so he can get in. Luke wasn't letting him in saying Ashley was sick and Ricky to his credit says he doesn't care if she is sick and wants to help so he does care. Luke seems to know everything from the internet as he had researched that women get scared during scary movies because it releases dopamine. The Home Alone homage where Ashley is scared by the tarantula is great. The relationship between Luke and Garrett feels like a real serial killer and accomplice type of relationship. There is an innocence to this movie because it involves kid characters. Turn them all into adults and this would become something like The House on the Edge of the Park or something. It also has similarities to something like The Girl Next Door as it inverts the idea of the safety of suburbia.
Rating: 8/10
Trivia: Every actor in this besides Virginia Madsen and Patrick Warburton is Australian.
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