Better Watch Out

Better Watch Out takes place in a quiet suburban neighbourhood in the run-up to Christmas. Ashley, a teenage babysitter, is looking after twelve-year-old Luke while his parents are out for the evening. Luke and his friend Garrett would rather spend the night watching scary movies, and the arrangement seems to be heading that way until someone forces their way into the house. What Ashley assumes is an ordinary break-in soon turns out to be something quite different, and the decorated family home becomes the setting for a night that none of those involved expected.

The film is directed by Chris Peckover, who wrote the screenplay with Zack Kahn. It is his second feature, following Undocumented in 2010. Olivia DeJonge plays Ashley, with Levi Miller as Luke, Ed Oxenbould as Garrett, Aleks Mikic as Ricky, Dacre Montgomery as Jeremy and Patrick Warburton as Robert Lerner. It was produced by Brion Hambel, Paul Jensen and Sidonie Abbene, and runs 89 minutes.

A production of Australia and the United States, the film was released in October 2017. Its ratings are close across the board: it holds 6.5 out of 10 on IMDb from around 52,000 votes and 6.6 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller audience of some 1,689 voters, while a film critics' rating of 6.9 out of 10 from 66 reviews places it slightly above both. The broad agreement suggests a film that lands roughly as intended with critics and viewers alike.