Babysitter, The (1980) (TV)

Directed by:
Peter Medak

Needing a fresh start, the Benedict family have recently moved from Chicago to a large country home on an island off the coast of Seattle. Dad Jeff (William Shatner), a dentist, has immersed himself in work, tries to stay away as much as possible because he doesn't want to deal with his wife and may have a mistress on the side. Mom Liz (Patty Duke) is unhappy, unfulfilled, feels neglected and is still fighting an alcohol addiction; which had gotten so bad before it was the catalyst for their move in the first place. Desperate for a purpose in life, she's channeled all her ill-feelings and misery over into her role as "good mother" and is smothering and overly-protective when it comes to 12-year-old daughter Tara (Quinn Cummings), who she seldom even lets out of her sight. Being prevented from playing with children in the area, Tara is lonely and bored herself and has developed a crush on an older neighborhood teen named Scotty (David Wallace). The family is vulnerable and at their breaking point, and that's the perfect time for 18-year-old orphan Joanna Redwine (Stephanie Zimbalist) to come into their lives. After all, she's a lovely, polite, well-mannered, intelligent, confident and compassionate young lady... at least at first.

After "accidentally" causing a car accident, Joanna shows up to check in on Liz and plies her with a sob story about how she'll soon be kicked out of her home by her foster parents. Liz sympathizes with her plight and offers her a summer job there doing house work and serving as a babysitter and companion to Tara. Joanna moves in and quickly proves to be an excellent cook and housekeeper, not to mention wise and mature beyond her years. She becomes a friend to Tara, encouraging her to spend more time outdoors and helping her get over her fear of water and snakes. She also becomes a confidant and shoulder to cry on mom, who is frequently upset at her husband's absence and casual neglect. As for Jeff, well he can't help but notice how attractive she is. But as things in these sort of films always do, everything eventually starts unraveling. Joanna proves herself to be a murderous psychopath with a history of tearing apart families and then murdering them before moving on to the next one and trying again.

A masterful manipulator, Joanna manages to convince Liz she can do no wrong and encourages her to start drinking again until she's a pathetic hysterical drunk. She quickly moves in on Scotty; heartlessly stealing the impressionable young Tara's crush (who will later die in a mysterious boating "accident") and dresses in mom's sexy black negligee in an attempt to seduce dad. She stops cooking and doing her housework, trashes the house during a party, turns the bitter spouses against one another and alienates the daughter from both parents. Overhearing her lying, neighboring psychiatrist Dr. Lindquist (John Houseman) immediately suspects something is off with Joanna and begins investigating matters. Though juvenile records are sealed, he is able to find the young girl's former foster mother (Virginia Kiser), who blames her for the death of her infant child. He also eventually learns Joanna has some (plastic-wrapped) skeletons in her closet... but can he reach the family before it's too late?

Director Medak had just made the excellent ghost story The Changeling (1980) with George C. Scott prior to this one and, while it's clearly not in the same league, it still isn't a bad little thriller. The entire cast does competent work and Jennifer Miller's plausible script features good characterizations and is quite sly and perceptive at times. It's also very similar to the later Poison Ivy (1992), with a charming and seductive young sociopath moving in on a vulnerable family and leaving them more screwed up than they were before she came into the picture, and also shares definite similarities to such later films as The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992). The intrigue unfortunately isn't sustained through to the end though and it eventually opts for a routine and predictable finale.

The Babysitter debuted on ABC in November of 1980. There was an American VHS release through HBO and it was also issued on tape in Brazil by Orion (as A Enviada do Mal), in Finland by Hollywood Home Video (as Lapsenvahti), in the UK and a few other countries. There's no DVD as of this writing, but the film has played on the MGMHD Channel.

★★1/2

Zûmu in: Bôkô danchi (1980)

... aka: ズームイン　暴行団地

... aka: Zoom In: Sex Apartments
... aka: Zoom In: Rape Apartments

Directed by:
Naosuke Kurosawa

Saeko (Erina Miyai) is having a very eventful day. In the morning, her competitive cyclist husband Kôchi (Toshikatsu Matsukaze) wants a quickie before he heads out the door on an extended trip. In the afternoon, she's riding her bike through a vacant lot when someone throws a rock into her wheel spokes and makes her crash. The rock-thrower - decked out in a black trench coat, black pants, black toboggan and black leather gloves - then bends her over and rapes her. Strangely only slightly disturbed by the attack, Saeko makes her way to an apartment house to meet up with Takaya (Keijirô Shiga), an ex-lover she hasn't seen in five years. The two had bumped into each other aboard a train a week earlier, he sent her a key to his apartment and there she is. It isn't long before the two are rekindling things. After having sex (twice), Takaya confesses to Saeko that, when she left him for the other guy; "I wanted to kill you so badly." Considering Takaya wears the same exact outfit and gloves as a psycho who's recently been killing women in the same area and brandishes the same assault weapon (a "hammer felt picker;" basically a needle with a handle used to tune pianos), he may not be kidding about the killing part...

Immediately after Takaya arrives on the scene, the currently-under-construction Kibougahara high rise apartment complex is haunted by a psycho arsonist who gets his jollies raping, torturing and murdering young women. The first victim is a schoolgirl who gets her eye gouged out before the killer strips her naked, stuffs a gasoline-soaked rag up her vagina and then sets it on fire. Yow! The next woman's dead mutilated body is discovered strewn in a jungle gym. Saeko begins to suspect Takaya may be the culprit, but continues her passionate affair with him. In fact, deep down inside she may actually be turned on by the fact he's nuts. 

Despite news bulletins recommending women in the area not go out alone, women continue to, anyway. A third victim is assaulted inside a vacant unit, where the killer strips her, knocks out her teeth, forces her to perform oral sex on him and then takes a blowtorch to her privates. Saeko goes to visit her married girlfriend Sachi (Yôko Azusa) for comfort and ends up getting comforted all right... by both Sachi and her husband (Ren Seidô). There's also a mentally-disturbed young homeless girl (Yûkô Osaki) lurking around who seems to be obsessed with Takaya and hides in a garbage dump masturbating while watching the killer incinerating another naked woman alive (!!)

Pleasant stuff this is not, but it's actually not as disturbing and outrageous as it probably sounds. Part of that is due to Japan's ban on showing pubic hair and full frontal nudity, which keeps the sex and genital mutilations a bit less explicit than what one may see in an American or European counterpart. Another reason is that it refuses to tap into the psychology of its characters enough to really get under one's skin. Sure, the attack scenes are somewhat nasty, but they would have been more disturbing if we knew something - anything - about what makes the lead characters tick. The fact our heroine has some dark sexual desires herself could have been a novel angle to play, but it's not adequately fleshed out. There are many long simulated sex scenes (again, shot not to show any below-the-waist nudity) and T&A though, and this was clearly made primarily for titillation purposes. In that regard, it's probably most successful, at least for roughie, rape and / or fire fetishists.

Best known here in the U.S. as Zoom In: Rape Apartments, this was issued on DVD by Synapse as Zoom In: Sex Apartments, which is a more apt title since there's more consensual sex on display than actual rape. Though the writing is highly uneven, it's otherwise technically sound, with good photography and music, plus some nice visual / directorial touches. The running time falls just short of 70 minutes.

There were numerous other Zoom In or Zoom Up soft-core titles released in Japan around the same time as part of Nikkatsu's long-running Roman Porno series. The ball started rolling with the financially successful Zoom Up: Rape Site (1979), which was also written by Chiho Katsura and starred Miyai. That led to this one, Zoom Up: The Beaver Book Girl (1980), Zoom Up: Sexual Crime Report (1981), Zoom Up: Genuine Look at a Stripper (1982), Zoom Up: Graduation Photos (1984) and Zoom Up: Special Masturbation (1986).

★★1/2