Video Scripts: Stardust, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, Gladiator II

Cody shares some more of his JoBlo videos.

I have been writing news articles and film reviews for ArrowintheHead.com for several years, and for the last few years I have also been writing scripts for videos that are released through the site's YouTube channel JoBlo Horror Originals. Recently I started writing video scripts for the JoBlo Originals YouTube channel as well. I have previously shared the videos I wrote that covered 

- Frailty, Dead Calm, and Shocker 

- 100 Feet, Freddy vs. Jason, and Pin 

- Night Fare, Poltergeist III, and Hardware 

- A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, and It's Alive

- Dark City, Mute Witness, and The Wraith

- Army of Darkness, Cannibal Holocaust, and Basket Case 

- Halloween timeline, The Pit, and Body Parts

- Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, and The Thing (2011)

- The Monster Squad, Trick or Treat, and Maximum Overdrive

- A Fish Called Wanda, Night of the Creeps, and Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI

- Race with the Devil, Speed, and Romancing the Stone

- Maniac Cop 3, WarGames, and Night of the Living Dead (1990)

- The Rock, Witchboard, and Friday the 13th Part 2

- Intruder, Saving Private Ryan, and Big Trouble in Little China

- The First Power, Psycho (1960), and Hot Fuzz

- Cat People (1982), Bride of Re-Animator, and Con Air

- Moulin Rouge (2001), The Hills Have Eyes Part 2 (1985), and The Stuff

- Children of the Corn (1984), Bone Tomahawk, and Fight Club

- The Departed, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, and Ginger Snaps

- Silver Bullet, Last Action Hero, and Children of Men

- FleshEater, Christmas Vacation, and Lethal Weapon

- The Thing (1982), Monkey Shines, and Friday the 13th (1980)

- P2, Lethal Weapon 2, and Frozen (2010)

- Lethal Weapon 3, The Blob (1988), and Lethal Weapon 4

- The Fast and the Furious, Dance of the Dead, and The Rage: Carrie 2

- Puppet Master, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and Castle Freak (1995)

- The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, and Halloween III: Season of the Witch

- Fast Five, Dog Soldiers, and Tremors 3: Back to Perfection

- Drag Me to Hell, 3D '80s Horror, and unmade Mission: Impossible sequels

- Sleepaway Camp, Tremors 4: The Legend Begins, and 2001 Maniacs

- Gremlins, Furious 6, and Lone Wolf McQuade

- The Last Showing, Grindhouse, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

- Christmas Horror, Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys, and Furious 7

- Drive (2011), 1986 horror comedies, and Alien: Romulus

- Murder Party, Twisters, and Hellraiser

- Black Phone 2, Super 8, Red State

- Longlegs, The Mummy (2017), Dead-Alive

- Mission: Impossible 8, When a Stranger Calls (2006), MCU Blade

Three more videos that I have written the scripts for can be seen below, two for the JoBlo Originals channel and one for the JoBlo Upcoming Movies channel.

For the Revisited series, I wrote about director Matthew Vaughn's 2007 Neil Gaiman adaptation Stardust:

Stardust script: 

INTRO: Director Matthew Vaughn is known for making gangster movies and comic book adaptations. Producing Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and making his directorial debut with Layer Cake paved the way for bigger projects: Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class, the Kingsman franchise, Argylle. But in between the gangsters and the over-the-top heroics, he decided to make a fairy tale. Based on the writing of popular author Neil Gaiman, the film tells of witches, unicorns, flying ships, lightning catchers, and a falling star... that’s actually a person. Released in 2007, the movie we’re talking about is called Stardust. And it’s time for it to be Revisited.

SET-UP: The story of Stardust goes back to the early 1990s. While out driving one day, Neil Gaiman saw a wall running along one side of the road and was struck by the idea that a magical land called Faerie might exist on the other side of that wall. So he started plotting a book that he intended to call Wall. Which would have been about a writer from America moving to England. Where he discovers this wall that separates the world we see around us from the land of Faerie. This idea was set aside when Gaiman saw a shooting star cross the sky one night. In that moment, he was inspired to write a whole different story about Faerie and the wall.

With illustrator Charles Vess, Gaiman crafted a text-heavy four-issue comic book mini-series called Stardust. The story begins in 1839, in the English town of Wall. Every nine years, on May Day, the magical beings that inhabit Faerie hold a market event in the meadow outside the town. The rest of the time, the gap in the wall between the two lands is under twenty-four hour guard. When a Wall resident named Dunstan Thorn crosses over into Faerie, he ends up being enchanted by a young woman named Una. She is kept as a slave by a witch-woman called Ditchwater Sal, who makes Una spend most of her time as a bird. But she’s in her proper form when she meets Dunstan. They have sex and Dunstan returns to Wall... where, nine months later, a baby is delivered to his door. Turns out he and Una have had a son. Dunstan raises this son, named Tristran. Eighteen years later, Tristran has become infatuated with fellow Wall resident Victoria Forester. He gets her to go out with him one night, but she won’t give him a kiss. When they see a falling star, Victoria tells Tristran she’ll give him anything he desires if he retrieves the fallen star for her. So Tristran sets out to find the star, crossing over into the land of Faerie. And going on a much bigger adventure than he anticipated.

Turns out, the star that has fallen to the ground is a person. Or at least she has a humanoid appearance. Her name is Yvaine, and she was knocked out of the sky when she was hit by a topaz pendant. Which was tossed into the sky by the dying Lord of a land called Stormhold. The Lord once had seven sons, but they’ve been killing each other off to get closer to the throne. The dead ones are still hanging around as ghosts. A few sons are left alive, and whoever finds the topaz pendant – now in the possession of Yvaine – will replace their father on the throne. Meanwhile, a trio of decrepit witches have also seen the star fall from the sky. One of them goes to find where it has landed... because if they cut out Yvaine’s heart and consume it, their youth and beauty will be restored. The witch uses magic to cover up her true appearance, but every time she uses other spells on her journey, her real looks start to come through.

Tristran is the first to reach Yvaine. Even though he’s surprised to see that the star is a woman rather than a rock, he still goes through with taking her back to Wall. And thus has to deal with witches and the sons of Stormhold coming after her. Along the way, there are encounters with a unicorn. Goats that have been transformed into people. And the crew of a ship that flies above the clouds, on a lightning-hunting expedition.

A couple years after the Stardust comic book was published, Gaiman also released the story as a novel without Vess’s illustrations. But even before that, Miramax had picked up the film rights to Stardust. They had Gaiman write a treatment for the adaptation. But they didn’t like what he wrote. So they had Ehren Kruger write another treatment. Which they didn’t like, either. So they lost interest and Gaiman got the rights back. Disappointed with the Miramax experience, he spent the next few years rejecting people and companies that wanted to make a Stardust movie. Then, in 2003, he made a short film called A Short Film About John Bolton. Which was produced by Matthew Vaughn. They had a good time working together – and around this time, Vaughn’s wife Claudia Schiffer read and fell in love with Stardust. So Gaiman felt comfortable moving forward with a Stardust adaptation that would have Vaughn involved. At first, Vaughn was going to produce the film. Terry Gilliam was going to direct it. But then Gilliam made the 2005 fantasy film The Brothers Grimm. Which centers on the legendary fairy tale tellers and sends them on their own fairy tale adventure. After making that movie, Gilliam said there was no way he could go right back into the world of fairy tales. So he dropped out of Stardust. In the meantime, Vaughn had gotten into directing when Guy Ritchie decided not to make Layer Cake. On the strength of that film, 20th Century Fox hired him to direct X-Men: The Last Stand. Two weeks before that movie was going to start filming, he stepped away due to creative disagreements with the studio. That’s when Vaughn decided he was going to direct Stardust himself.

At Gaiman’s suggestion, Vaughn brought Jane Goldman in to write the screenplay with him. Establishing a partnership that would continue through several more of Vaughn’s films. Whittling Gaiman’s story down into a two hour film presented multiple challenges. They had to simplify portions of the story. Which included having to remove a really fun character known as “the little hairy man” so they could get Tristran to Yvaine quicker. They also changed Tristran’s name to Tristan and called the magical land Stormhold instead of Faerie. They expanded some elements of the story. For example, Gaiman didn’t write much about Tristan and Yvaine’s time on the flying ship. Vaughn and Goldman put a lot more focus on that, turning Captain Alberic into Captain Shakespeare. A gay man who puts on drag shows in private. Then puts on a macho act in front of his crew. The screenwriters also had to figure out how rough-edged the film should be. Gaiman’s story has been described as a fairy tale for grown-ups. Most of the text is quite family friendly. But then there’s the sex scene between Dunstan and Una in the first chapter. Another sex scene involving a prostitute later. An F-bomb. A throat slitting. A unicorn’s head being hacked off with a meat cleaver. Vaughn and Goldman chose to soften the edges. Keeping things family-friendly throughout. And while Gaiman’s story has a rather low-key resolution, for a movie they had to keep things action-packed.

Seeking an unknown to play Tristan, Vaughn chose Charlie Cox. Who, these days, is best known for being Marvel’s Daredevil. Bigger names were cast around Cox. Claire Danes plays Yvaine. Michelle Pfeiffer is the witch Lamia. Some of the sons of Stormhold are played by Mark Strong, Jason Flemyng, and Rupert Everett. Their father is played by the great Peter O’Toole. Robert De Niro took on the role of Captain Shakespeare. Ricky Gervais plays Ferdy the Fence, a character who was created for the film. Sienna Miller is Tristan’s crush Victoria, while Henry Cavill has a small role as a rival for her affections. Ian McKellen provides the narration. Tristan’s parents Dunstan and Una are played by Ben Barnes and Kate Magowan, with Nathaniel Parker as the older Dunstan.

REVIEW: Vaughn and Goldman changed a lot about Stardust on the way from the page to the screen. Reading the book and watching the movie are very different experiences. This could cause some disappointment for those who decide to check out both. If you watch the movie first, you may be let down when you find that Captain Shakespeare is nowhere to be found. Or that the climactic action isn’t there. If you read the book first, the way things are presented in the movie may not live up to the magical world you imagined. Where’s the little hairy man? The vampire trees? The talking badger in a dressing gown? The fight between the lion and the unicorn? Some of the changes were budgetary. It was going to be way too expensive for Vaughn to put a lion and unicorn battle on screen. Some were creative. He wanted to spend more time on the flying ship. Build in a lesson that you shouldn’t pretend to be something you’re not just to impress others. Work in some entertaining action. And present this fairy tale in a more down-to-earth way. Even with the witch’s magic, he didn’t want it to be too outlandish. His approach was to make something that would feel like a blend of The Princess Bride and Midnight Run.

Gaiman acknowledges that the movie is different from what he wrote. And he wasn’t sure about some of the changes that were being made. But in the end, he seemed pleased with and accepting of the film. As he told USA Today, it’s better that Vaughn didn’t try to exactly replicate what was on the page, because, "I would hate for people to go and see a version of Stardust that is Stardust the book, only not as good." He went on to tell Empire, "I sort of feel like my grounding in comics was actually very useful because in my head, that's just the Earth-Two version of Stardust. It's a parallel Earth version of Stardust, which has Robert De Niro and stuff."

So taking Stardust the movie on its own terms, it’s an entertaining fantasy film. Vaughn was admittedly better at shooting action and keeping things moving along quickly than he was with the human relationship stuff. Stardust may still be over two hours long, but it moves through those two hours at a fast pace. Some of this is due to the way the script condensed the original story. But it’s also due to the fact that Vaughn is always bouncing back and forth between the various characters. Never giving any of them scenes that are too drawn out. There’s so much bouncing around, the witch Lamia and Septimus of Stormhold almost start to overshadow Tristan and Yvaine in a story that’s meant to revolve around them. But that’s where Goldman steps in. Gaiman suggested having her co-write the script with Vaughn because she could help him with the relationship side of things. And there are some sweet moments with Tristan and Yvaine as we watch them gradually fall in love.

Sure, the livelier and occasionally over-the-top performances from the supporting cast do steal the show. But Charlie Cox and Claire Danes are able to keep their section of the story grounded.

The climactic action sequence Vaughn and Goldman came up with feels absolutely right for their telling of the story. It wraps things up in a fun way. And even if you’re hung up on the fact that it’s so different from the book... how could you ever complain about a sequence that lets you watch a swordfight where one of the participants is a corpse that a witch is using like a puppet?

LEGACY/NOW: Test audiences were so pleased with Stardust, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura was even surprised at how highly they scored it. He told Rotten Tomatoes, "It's a weird thing to say. I don't think everybody's going to love the movie because it's not a movie that's designed to be that. And yet, when we went and tested it, they really flipped for it. It just caught me off guard. It was a movie where I expected to have a larger portion of the audience sort of go, 'Well, that's sort of out there. Not sure it's for us.' And what happened was that we delivered a romance so spectacularly well, Matthew Vaughn did such a good job with it, that it caught a segment of the audience that I wasn't expecting." The test audiences did bring up an issue on how the movie should be marketed, because they strongly disagreed that it should be described as a fairy tale. So di Bonaventura wasn’t sure what they should call it. As he said, "It is an adventure movie, it is a romance, it is fantasy, it is Neil Gaiman's bizarre world view."

Whatever it is, it had a budget somewhere in the range of seventy to ninety million dollars. So it needed to do well. Paramount Pictures gave it a wide release in the United States in the summer of 2007… and it opened at number four. Its opening weekend was described as a crash-landing and Stardust was compared to the fantasy films that flopped in the 1980s. Still, the U.S. ended up being the film’s largest market, as it made a total of thirty-eight million there. The U.K. release followed a few months later and added thirty-one million to Stardust’s haul. It ended up with a total of one hundred and thirty-seven million at the global box office. Not a big success, but not a bomb, either. The film was well-received by critics and the audiences that did show up to see it. It gathered a cult following… and that following grew when it reached home video, where it was more successful than it was in theatres.

That wasn’t enough to get a sequel greenlit, though. Seven years after the movie was released, Vaughn revealed to Den of Geek that he had really been hoping to get the chance to make a follow-up. He said, "I had a really crazy fun idea for a Stardust 2. The opening scene was Charlie Cox’s character, being the King and throwing out the necklace. This time the necklace goes over the wall and bounces off Big Ben, and you’re suddenly in London in the early 1960s, with these mad kings and princes and princesses running around London. All on the quest for the stone. That was my idea for the sequel, but sadly the film didn’t make enough money for anyone to want to make it."

It’s a shame that Vaughn didn’t get to make his return to the world of Stardust. But at least he got to make one trip to that world. And delivered a film that has been loved by many of its viewers. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s worth checking out, as it still holds up all these years later. And where else are you going to see a swordfighting corpse being puppeteered by a witch?

Also for the Revisited series, I wrote about the 1991 cult classic Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, directed by Stephen Herek: 

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead script: 

INTRO: It was a movie with a questionable title. A lot of critics were rough on it. Gene Siskel even called it one of the worst movies of the year. It came and went in theatres with few movie-goers paying any attention. But in the years since its release, it has become a beloved cult classic. With a legion of fans that love quoting its memorable lines. Some of its youngest viewers were drawn in by what they saw as a wish fulfillment concept: What would you do if the babysitter croaked on the first day of your mom’s vacation... so you had the house to yourself for two months straight? We get to see what the Crandall kids would do in the 1991 comedy Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead – and it’s time for this one to be Revisited. 

SET-UP: Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Paul Brickman’s 1983 coming-of-age film Risky Business. Which starred Tom Cruise as a young Bob Seger fan. When his parents go out of town, he takes the opportunity to dance around the house in his underwear. Wreck his dad’s Porsche. Get on the bad side of a pimp. And turn his parents’ home into a brothel. Aspiring screenwriter Neil Landau was a fan of Risky Business and was inspired to take the set-up and flip it on its head. As he told Buzzfeed, the idea he wanted to explore was, “What if the parents went out of town and instead of the kids destroying everything, they got their shit together? If anybody underestimated them, what if they actually were able to function in the adult world because they were forced to?” In 1987, he teamed up with novelist Tara Ison to write the script. The title on the front page was The Real World – and it looked like their reality was going to become a reflection of their script. Because just like the young lead character quickly finds success in the corporate world, they found success in Hollywood. The two twenty-somethings were able to sell their script to a major studio, 20th Century Fox.

For the lead role, Landau and Ison envisioned someone like Winona Ryder. Who was on the rise at the time, with roles in Lucas, Beetlejuice, and Heathers. Ryder was never attached to the project, but Fox was able to get Justine Bateman of the popular sitcom Family Ties to sign on. And they also had Landau and Ison do some major script rewrites.

The story centers on the Crandall family. After dedicating seventeen years of her life to her children, Mrs. Crandall is ready for a two-month vacation in Australia. She’s so focused on relaxing, she’s not even going to take the time to make daily calls to her kids. Seventeen-year-old Sue Ellen – who everyone calls Swell – is expecting two months of freedom. But then Mom reveals that she has hired a babysitter to watch the kids for her entire vacation. Landau and Ison originally wrote the babysitter as a nice old lady who gets along with the Crandalls. Before dropping dead of natural causes. Fox thought that would be too sad, so they had her rewritten to be a whistle-blowing taskmaster. Who manages to piss everyone off very quickly. She assigns daily chores, has the kids wear name tags and write reports, turns off the TV, interrupts a date. She even makes Swell’s tomboy sister wear a dress. Fox also wanted to have more characters in the mix, so they had the number of Crandall children increased from three to five. Swell has a stoner brother named Kenny. The tomboy sister is Melissa. Their brother Zach’s world revolves around the girl he’s dating. And little Walter doesn’t want to do anything but watch TV.

The babysitter dies at the end of her first day on the job. So it looks like the kids are going to get their months of freedom after all. The problem is, when they drop her body off at the mortuary... along with a sign informing, “Nice Old Lady Inside Died of Natural Causes”... they forget to check her pockets. She had the money Mom left to keep the kids alive and fed for two months. So Swell has to get a job to support the family. A gig at a disgusting fast food place called Clown Dog only lasts long enough for her to make a romantic connection with co-worker Bryan. Then she forges a résumé, lies about her age, and lands a job as administrative assistant to executive Rose Lindsey at General Apparel West. A hiring that doesn’t sit well with receptionist Carolyn and her oily buddy Bruce.

Fox also wanted more information on the company Swell works for. That part of the story was irrelevant to Landau and Ison, but they dug into it for the studio. They made it a vitamin company and a book company before landing on the idea of it being a clothing company. Allowing for a climactic sequence that involves a homespun fashion show. A good move, considering how popular that fashion show ended up being with viewers. Another good move was Fox’s decision to have the writers remove a scene where Swell would have accidentally killed Rose Lindsey’s cat. While doing these rewrites, Landau and Ison drew inspiration from Mike Nichols’ film Working Girl. Which was about a secretary who gets the chance to quickly ascend the corporate ladder. 

Unfortunately, Justine Bateman dropped out of the project before it could go into production. And Fox lost interest at that point. In 1989, they sold it off to Outlaw Productions, which was about to send Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape into the world. Outlaw asked for one more rewrite, which was to make Swell’s love interest Bryan the brother of her receptionist nemesis Carolyn. Then they were ready to roll. They secured financing from HBO. Hired Stephen Herek, director of the hit Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, to take the helm. And got Ed O’Neil to pass the script to Christina Applegate, his co-star on the sitcom Married... with Children.

Applegate liked the script and signed on to star as Swell. Cast to play her siblings were Keith Coogan as Kenny, Christopher Pettiet as Zach, Robert Hy Gorman as Walter, and Jennifer Love Hewitt as Melissa… But Hewitt was on a TV show called Kids Incorporated at the time, and they wouldn’t give her the time off to do the movie. So she was replaced by Danielle Harris. At Landau’s suggestion, Joanna Cassidy was cast as Rose Lindsey. With John Getz as her boyfriend Gus, who tries to seduce Swell. Jayne Brook and David Duchovny were cast as Swell’s enemies Carolyn and Bruce. With Kimmy Robertson as the helpful Cathy and Josh Charles as Swell’s love interest Bryan. Concetta Tomei and Eda Reiss Merin make brief appearances as Mrs. Crandall and the ill-fated, short-lived babysitter Mrs. Sturak.

REVIEW: The babysitter is only in the movie for seven minutes. Kenny never even meets her. The title Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead – which Landau and many others involved with the project hated – may catch your eye. But the babysitter and her moment of death have little to do with the overall movie. This isn’t the dark comedy you may envision when you first hear the title. Things wouldn’t have been much different if it were Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter Never Showed Up. Or Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter Left Early. All the story needed was an excuse for the kids to have no adult supervision. And no money to survive on. If you’re wondering why the Crandall kids don’t turn to their dad to help, that suggestion is shrugged off with one simple line: “Dad doesn’t care.” Given how flippant Mrs. Crandall is about leaving the kids and not calling them very often, you might wonder how much Mom cares as well. 

When we meet the Crandalls, their house is a mess. And the family unit is just as much of a disaster. So while a lot of critics wrote off the movie as something stupid and inept, there actually is a good story in here. You expect the Crandalls to go completely wild with their two months of freedom. And for a while, most of the kids do go wild. Using the petty cash Swell has access to at her job. Wasting it on extravagant purchases like an entertainment system and a diamond ring. But eventually, things start to turn around. Right around the time Walter gets hurt by falling off the roof while trying to adjust the TV antenna. The Crandalls start to straighten up their act. And clean up the house. Kenny in particular has a great character arc. Going from someone who only cares about drugs and rock ‘n roll to someone who takes care of his family and has career goals. Keith Coogan is really the entertainment MVP of the film. His stoner character starts out hilarious, and he has great deliveries of lines like, “Dishes are done, man.” Or even a simple F-bomb when his marijuana plant falls off his windowsill. And he really sells Kenny’s evolution as the story plays out.

Applegate has the more serious role compared to a lot of her co-stars. Many of them have the chance to go over-the-top, while she has to play things more grounded. And she did a great job, proving she was a capable lead. At this time, she was best known for being the sexy airhead on Married... with Children. Swell has a shallow start, but quickly takes on the stress of having to work and support her siblings. It’s a nice story of a young girl being dropped into the adult world. Finding herself in over her head. And yet somehow finding a way to succeed, against the odds. The original title Landau and Ison had on their script, The Real World, was very fitting for the story. And would have saved some viewers from the disappointment of finding out Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead is actually about a teenager having success in the fashion industry. Online trivia will tell you that the title The Real World was dropped because MTV had just started airing their long-running reality series with the same name... But this movie was filmed in 1990 and released in June of 1991. The Real World didn’t premiere on MTV until eleven months later. So the reality show didn’t exist yet when some executive came up with Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. Figuring the movie would be better off with a goofy, attention-grabbing title. And they were probably right. The title may have been off-putting to some, but in the long run it probably drew in a wider audience. And then that audience got to experience the story Landau and Ison always wanted to tell. It underwent a lot of rewrites, but at its core it remained the same: it’s still about kids realizing they can function in the adult world and improve themselves in the process. Who would expect a movie with this title to have such a wholesome message?

LEGACY/NOW: Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead was made on a budget of ten million dollars and secured distribution through Warner Bros. As post-production wrapped up and the film headed toward its theatrical release, the filmmakers were feeling very positive about it. There was hope that this would kick off a franchise. Sequels were being imagined with set-ups like Don’t Tell Mom We Lost Walter. But it only ended up earning twenty-five million at the box office... Not enough for the producers to greenlight a sequel.

The film really reached its audience once it hit VHS. And then cable, where it was in heavy rotation on HBO, since they had provided the funding. That’s when young viewers started watching the movie repeatedly. Witnessing the evolution of the Crandall family over and over. The film quickly attained cult classic status, and fans can be heard quoting its lines to this day. “Dishes are done, man.”  “I’m right on top of that, Rose.” “TV rots your brains.”

Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead is one of the most popular projects Christina Applegate has ever worked on. She told Buzzfeed that she felt it gained that popularity because viewers could relate to the characters. And found hope in the story. She said, “Sue Ellen was kind of pissed off, she was not doing great in school, not participating in her family so much. She was relatable to a lot of teenagers who feel like the burden of the world is on them. They're so dramatic about everything and I think in her success, there's hope. When I've seen it now as an adult, that's what I see: It's a feel-good movie. Everyone gets a second chance. Everyone gets the chance to turn themselves around, and all kids want to feel that way. They don't want to feel stuck in what they are. These characters give kids hope, and I think that's thematically what you walk away from it believing and sensing and seeing.”

So what if Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead wasn’t successful enough to get a sequel? It did become popular enough to get a remake thirty-three years later. And regardless of how viewers react to that remake, its existence does show that the filmmakers did something right with the original. They made something that entertained people. That made them feel better about their lives. And it has been doing that for decades now. So if you need some fun and hope injected into your day, go back to Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. It’s definitely worth revisiting.

From the Upcoming Movies channel, we get a video based on an everything we know article I wrote about Ridley Scott's upcoming film Gladiator II:

More video scripts have been written, so another batch of videos will be shared here on Life Between Frames eventually. In the meantime, keep an eye on JoBlo Horror Originals and JoBlo Originals!