Directed By: Chris Peckover
Starring: Olivia DeJonge, Levi Miller, Ed Oxenbould
Tag line: "You Might Be Home But You're Not Alone"
Trivia: Director Chris Peckover tried to obtain the rights to the Wham! song "Last Christmas", but singer George Michael didn't want it associated with such a "dark" movie
Ah. Christmas… the best time of the year!
Carolers… decorations… good will towards your fellow man… etc., etc.
All that stuff is great, but the real reason I love the season is it gives me a chance to watch a slew of Holiday-themed movies and TV specials, and like most film fans my definition of what constitutes a “Christmas Movie” is a bit broad, so a number of different genres make up my December viewing schedule.
First up are some of my childhood favorites (Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Year Without a Santa Claus, and the criminally underappreciated ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas), followed by a few different versions of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (My favorite is the 1984 TV movie with George C. Scott, but I also enjoy Rich Little’s Christmas Carol, an HBO special I first caught in the early ‘80s; as well as the hilarious Blackadder’s Christmas Carol).
After that, anything goes: Action (Die Hard, Lethal Weapon); Comedy (the beloved A Christmas Story, Elf, Bad Santa, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation); Fantasy (Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, The Nightmare Before Christmas), and, of course, horror.
Now, there are plenty of entertaining holiday fright films to choose from, including Gremlins, Saint Nick, P2, A Christmas Horror Story and even the incredibly flawed Don’t Open Till Christmas. But to be honest, only two horror movies have been regular fixtures on my yearly Holiday schedule: the original Black Christmas and Silent Night, Deadly Night.
Well, I’m happy to report I now have a third film to add to the mix: director Chris Peckover’s Better Watch Out. From this point forward, it just won’t feel like Christmas without it!
For a while now, pre-teen Lucas Lerner (Levi Miller) has had a crush on Ashley (Olivia DeJonge), his 17-year-old babysitter, and with his parents (Virginia Madsen and Patrick Warburton) heading out to a Christmas party that evening, Lucas intends to to turn on the charm and finally land the girl of his dreams. His best friend Garrett (Ed Oxenhould) remains skeptical; along with being 5 years older than Lucas, Ashley also has a boyfriend, Ricky (Aleks Mikic), and what’s more, she’s heading off to college in a few days’ time. But Lucas believes his plan is foolproof, and the moment he’s alone with Ashley he begins to make his move...
But a frightening turn of events temporarily thwarts Lucas’s amorous advances, and before long he and Ashley find themselves hiding from a mysterious intruder. Will the two manage to outwit the invader, or is there more to this terrifying situation than meets the eye?
There’s much more to Better Watch Out, actually; a major twist just before the halfway point takes the story in a very different direction. Under normal circumstances, a shift like the one that occurs in this movie is difficult to pull off, but thanks to the film’s excellent young cast, we buy it hook, line, and sinker, and are more than a little anxious to see how everything plays out. Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenhould, both of whom co-starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit, deliver strong performances. DeJonge’s Ashley is no pushover, and proves time and again that she can take care of herself, unlike Oxenhould’s Garrett, who does whatever his best friend tells him to do (even when he knows it’s wrong).
The true standout, however, is Levi Miller, who shows incredible range in the role of the precocious Lucas, a 12-year-old who is intelligent for his age, yet not nearly as mature as he thinks (he is equal parts sinister and childish, often shifting from one to the other within the same scene). Madsen and Warburton also do a fine job in their brief appearances as Lucas’s parents, but it’s the youngsters that make Better Watch Out such a noteworthy horror film.
Throw in some effective situational comedy, a remarkably clever script (even when you think you’ve seen it all, the movie finds a way to surprise you), and a handful of grisly scenes (the worst of which, a nod to John Hughes’s Home Alone, makes us squirm even without the gore), and you have the makings of a Holiday horror classic.
And that’s exactly what Better Watch Out is destined to become.