2017’s The Babysitter took the world by storm, and remains one of the most popular sleeper hits of Netflix Originals.  It was clever, comedic, meta, and didn’t fail to deliver in the gore department.

So a sequel was inevitable and three years later, fans finally got one.  Does Killer Queen live up to its original source film, or does it deserve to be sacrificed to the devil?  Let’s take a closer look and find out!

(Spoiler Free Until the End)

Unbelievable Story
We pick up with Cole (Judah Lewis) two years after his traumatic experience with his babysitter Bee and her satanic cult.  Between his parents, teachers, and guidance counselors, they all have him mostly convinced that everything that happened that night was all in his head.

Now he’s facing the usual struggles of high school, but with the added bonus of being ostracized because his classmates think he’s crazy.  His only real friend is Melanie (Emily Alyn Lind), who even though she witnessed some of the events that night, remembers it a bit differently than Cole.

Most frustrating of all to him is that she’s dating someone else while it’s quite clear that Cole still has a thing for her.  Just when he thinks he’s the strangest kid in high school, a new student Phoebe (Jenna Ortega) arrives with a mysterious background.

Just when Cole’s parents are ready to send him to a special high school for students with psychiatric conditions, Melanie convinces him to sneak away from the weekend with a group of friends for a party on a houseboat.

However, as Cole tries to forget the past with a bit of reckless partying, his past comes back to bite him and he finds himself once again fighting for his life.

Cult 2.0
One of the major highlights of the first movie was the comedy, which mostly came from the other cult members Allison (Bella Thorne), Sonya (Hana Mae Lee), Max (Robbie Amell), and John (Andrew Bachelor).

The four of them return, having just one more chance to complete the ritual by sunrise, else they will return to being dead as they were at the end of the first movie.  As always, they’re a lot of fun, but some of their jokes and humor are just rehashes from the first one.

They’re still funny at times, but it did feel a bit like they were only there to remind us of why we liked them before rather than doing something new.

Killer Queen does make an interesting addition however, with newer high school aged cult members.  There’s a bit of conflict between them and the original group, whom they deem as “old”.

They even compete with each other to see which group can successfully capture Cole to obtain his blood.  The newer members have their moments, but he original quartet gets the majority of the screen time, because we’re already familiar with them.

But it’s not all about jokes either, The Babysitter: Killer Queen is just as much a brutal slasher of sorts, and it contains tons of over the top kills and gore.  The kills are just as, if not more creative than in the first.

(Spoilers From This Point On – You’ve Been Warned)

The Big Bad
No cult is complete without its leader and this sequel makes two very interesting choices in that regard, with varying levels of success.  Around the end of the first act, we learn that Melanie has actually been setting up Cole the entire time and that she’s the leader of the new generation.

She’s far from the innocent pre-teen we met in the first movie and well on her way to becoming the next “Big Bad” as Cole describes it.  She makes for a decent villain, with an emphasis on a cold apathy and Machiavellian approach to killing.

Last year, Emily Alyn Lind appeared as another villainous character, Snakebite Andi in Doctor Sleep.  Her growth as an actress from that project really shows here.

However, the big question from the trailers and advertising material was whether or not Samara Weaving would be returning as Bee.  Even throughout the movie, we’re left wondering as she doesn’t return with the rest of her four cult members.

However, we do see her in brief snippets of flashbacks, where we see how she recruited the four of them.  It’s only in the final 10 minutes that Bee makes her full return.  Just as Melanie is ready to perform the ritual, Bee appears, revealing that she’s been the mastermind behind it all, even pushing Melanie to make the deal with the devil.

But it’s a twist that doesn’t entirely add up.  Because the plan backfires when all the cult members drink the blood, due to Cole no longer being a virgin (having lost it to Phoebe that very night).

They all die one last time, and Bee confesses that she pulled the strings all night to get Cole to succeed and win in the end.  Apparently after the events of the first movie, she had a change of heart and wanted to help Cole.

But if that’s the case, why did she even orchestrate this from the start?  Unless her plan was to have Cole go through it again but come out a hero at the end, which he does.

Ultimately, Cole becomes the confident and assertive self that he always struggled to be.  And admittedly, this is all by Bee’s doing, but the plan itself is incredibly convoluted and bit farfetched, even for a movie like this.

Overall, The Babysitter: Killer Queen is plenty of fun, much like its predecessor.  But unlike its predecessor, its plot is a bit clunky at times and it lacks the simple charm that made it a classic.  It definitely feels like a sequel, but it’s still entertaining nevertheless.

The Babysitter: Killer Queen is streaming exclusively on Netflix!

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