Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead

1991 "No rules. No curfews. No baths. No nagging. No pulse."
6.3| 1h45m| PG-13| en
Details

Sue Ellen Crandell is a teenager eagerly awaiting her mother's summer-long absence. While the babysitter looks after her rambunctious younger siblings, Sue Ellen can party and have fun. But then the babysitter abruptly dies, leaving the Crandells short on cash. Sue Ellen finds a sweet job in fashion by lying about her age and experience on her résumé. But, while her siblings run wild, she discovers the downside of adulthood

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Reviews

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting
Console best movie i've ever seen.
Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Staci Frederick Blistering performances.
dellaroccokc So Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (AKA The Secret to My Success 2: Electric Boogaloo) is one of the most shameless wannabee ripoffs I've seen. You can tell from the image that this movie has on IMDb. The pull quote from the top of the image reads "Its Home Alone Times Five"...Whoever wrote that should be stripped of the right to free speech. It wants you to think that this movie has something to do with a bunch of kids and the fact that they have to deal with being "home alone". But it doesn't. There's 5 kids and the movie only deals with 2 of them. I say that because they're the only ones who have an arc. One of them plays baseball, one of them had a girlfriend at 11 years old but then didn't for reasons we don't know or care, and one of them fell off a roof. Wacky. So it begins with a quick intro to the two main characters, the oldest sister and brother. The brother is a stoner, and the sister...seems to be just a normal girl with normal problems one would have at her age. RANT ABOUT THE MOM: just about the worst person in the world. Seriously? You leave your 5 kids alone for 2 months? This is a premise no one can identify with. Because...WTF. She asked the babysitter if she knows there are 5 kids 1 minute before she leaves...So I'm going to skip over the babysitter part. Because its not important. The movie's title is about her dying, and its not the least bit important. There's no drama from this situation. You figure it can be almost like Weekend At Beernies, where they have to play like she's still alive to people. Like a relative comes by to check on them or whatever and they have to make it seem like she's there. But no, there's two scenes on the phone where the mom's asks where she is and they're just like "uhhhhhhhh shes gone".OK, so Kelly Bundy needs a job now to pay for food. Which is the only thing the movie shows as a need when the mom is away. Apparently the big house they live in is devoid of food when the mom leaves for 2 months. You figure this could be an amount that a fast food job could handle. But Kelly says F that I'm too good for this ish. So then she try's to get a high class job at a fashion...place. And she gets one under false pretense. But there's some mean lady trying to bring her down. This is pretty much the stakes of this movie, and why this movie fails. If she gets exposed, there is no bad thing that would happen. She would just lose her job, and her mom would come back a few days later and life would go back to normal. You could say that she was embezzling money and she would have gotten in trouble for that, but it's like 3 grand...maybe probation...not something a movie should be based around. Blah blah, the other kids make appearances here and there...blah blah, the stoner wonders if this life of "Rock and Roll!!!" is whats best...blah blah wait, is that David Duchovny? What is he doing here? He could have been written out and the movie would have preformed exactly the same. I guess I should just end this thing now. So Veronica Corningstone is going to save the company with her fashion sense. It has never been established that she has a superior fashion ability. She just grabs some clothes, and off she goes. You could have made this make sense in 30 seconds with a scene earlier in the movie with her displaying some sort of fashion opinion at a high end clothes store or something. Showing she has some sort of untapped potential at this. But nah.She for some reason decides to hold a fashion show at her house. You can debate that it was to save money which she didn't have, but that party looked like it cost a s-ton. This was a perfect opportunity to give all the kids a quick arc to show that they can do chores now. At the party everything goes fine til the boyfriend shows up. I didn't mention him before because he's not really important (they could have made him important but there is a 30 minute stretch where he's not mentioned or appears). He sees a house with 50 cars parked in front, doesn't recognize the signs that this might not be the best time to confess his love over a loudspeaker, and messes everything up. Doesn't matter because the Mom shows up and everything's exposed. Which results in nothing. Nothing at all... Listen, the point is that this movie has no purpose. It is two movies rolled into one, resulting in nothing. You can do a movie about a dead babysitter, and the crazy mishaps resulting in that, or you can do a movie about a girl trying to fake her way into high society...which is what they did. The problem is that we don't have any background or connection with this main character and the danger she's taking in lying about this job she's in. She's just doing it to make some food money. And she'll be OK in a couple of days when mommy gets home. And this is the director's fault. Somewhere he should have put more meaning in the characters. Giving them more of a reason to be better, or establishing that they are crappy to begin with. The older brother was this, but was done with the subtlety of a wrecking ball. Its your job to give this movie purpose and drive, and it pretty much lacks it all.
jfgibson73 This movie was nothing like what I expected it to be. It looked to me like a movie where the kids get the run of the house and go crazy, throwing parties and doing outrageous, irresponsible things. It ended up being closer to Working Girl: the oldest teen has to get a job and falls backwards into an upwardly mobile fashion career. The responsibilities of maintaining the house eventually turn each of the children into productive citizens.What bothered me wasn't so much the story as the fact that almost nothing was funny. It ended up being closer to a drama. There performances were cartoonish, but at the same time, weren't into so-bad-they're-funny territory (except for the guy who played Gus. Someone should have seen this movie and realized the potential this actor had as a physical comedian).So there was almost nothing to like. Once in a while, we get a good line or two, like when the brother and sister were arguing like a married couple. But as soon as one of these good exchanges got going, the movie cuts right away to something else, killing the comedy momentum. My opinion was that it was an idea with good potential that was completely mishandled.
Sandcooler You can't really have anything against this movie, because it's just incredibly harmless fun. The moral lessons that glue this movie together are taken straight from after-school specials, but they are delivered in such a delightful way that they almost become bearable. Almost. The humour is very creative and there are a lot of laughs, then again some of the best jokes are probably unintentional ones. I especially love the scene in which it turns out Sue Ellen has a knack for designing fashion, to which they show us the absolute most hideous clothes ever made in this universe. Ah, the early 90s, how I love thee and all thy weirdness. The cast does very well, kind of a shame none of them ever made it to the A-list. Christina Applegate might just be the most underrated actress in Hollywood, but oh well. Generally I'm not too fond of these movies with an oh-so-important message, but I gladly make an exception for this one.
moonspinner55 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 ****