azathothpwiggins A family is undermined by the cunning manipulation of a beautiful, young woman named Joanna (Stephanie Zimbalist). After insinuating herself into the family, she begins seducing the husband (William Shatner) and emotionally sabotaging the wife (Patty Duke). Knowing nothing of Joanna's extremely dark past, the family is unaware of just how dangerous she is, though the 12 year old daughter (Quinn Cummings) seems wiser than her clueless parents. Will they realize what Joanna is doing, before she causes irreparable damage, even death? Duke is great, and Shatner is less T.J. Kirk than usual. However, this is Zimbalist's movie, and she is the blackened sun at it's center. There's even a LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN moment on the lake! Mostly though, THE BABYSITTER prefigures the future POISON IVY, only in a more "family-friendly", made-for-TV form. Co-stars John Houseman as a doggedly suspicious neighbor...

cin_kong Having a familiar cast like this makes the performances seem more honest. You won't be disappointed by the acting.I was not a big fan of thrillers genres, however I did want to see Stephanie Zimbalist's early work. Even though you know she was up to no good, we the audience don't find out until the end, why Joanna manipulated people. The final scenes where she completely broke down was well acted and made it easy to feel sympathy for her character.

Robert J. Maxwell I wonder how many times we've seen this movie in one or another guise. They usually have names like "The Babysitter," "Seduction of the Babysitter," "The Girl Next Door," "The Crush," "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle", or something like that. The plot is generic. A juicy young woman comes into proximity with an utterly bourgeois family, insinuates herself, and befouls the family dynamics. A deletion here, a switch of identities there, a minor substitution -- but the underlying theme remains the same. If Claude Levi-Strauss hadn't wasted his time on Tsimshian myths, he could have done a delightful number on films like this. One can understand why, in this case, the husband might feel a certain attraction for the ever-so-available young woman. Stephanie Zimbalist is a delight to watch. She's not only beautiful, she moves well too. Women, through no fault of their own, generally run as if they were mimicking the most flamboyant kind of homosexual. But Stephanie Zimbalist has real momentum and comes in only slightly behind Emma Peel in "The Avengers." Her bosom is enticingly small which, in this case, only reinforces the impression of sinewy athleticism. These kinds of movies are easy to watch. They go down like pablum. And it's so easy to ignore the finer points of the plot while imagining dandling Stephanie or Alicia or Rebecca on an avuncular knee. And there really is little downside. The nuclear families to begin with are so dull, so unimaginative, so happy with themselves, that a bit of a nudge is in order anyway. It's a male fantasy from beginning to end, and not badly done if one cares for such things.

cwillis_m This movie was pretty descent. A few times I wasn't sure where it was going, but it always seemed to keep me interested. It kept pulling me back in. I guess that is a way I could put it. I really like how the movie was photographed. It added to the overall mood of it.