MARVEL-LESS MARVISTA: Nanny Cam (2014)

Director: Nancy Leopardi
Writer(s): Brian McAuley
Starring: India Eisley, Laura Allen, Cam Gigandet, and Farrah McKenzie

It's been said, I'm sure somewhere, that the opening shot is the one chance you have to suck in your audience, and to give them an enticing taste of what's to come. The opening scene of Nanny Cam does a perfect job of that, by essentially showing you all the film's flaws right from the outset: Linda and Mark, the main couple of this mess, leave their 8-year-old daughter Chloe—who's a terrible actress, by the way-- with an elderly woman—also a terrible actress-- while they plan to have a romantic evening out together. As it turns out, the old biddy has dementia (c'mon Linda, you should have done a little more research!), and ends up dropping a pot of burning water on Chloe. At least, I think that's what happens...she never shows any signs of actual injury and never gets taken to a hospital, but it's made out to be a big deal, with Linda informing the old woman she can't watch Chloe anymore.

Well now what can the upper-middle-class couple do when they want to go somewhere, as apparently no one in these movies have any friends or family? The search for a replacement is about to begin when lo and behold, an option falls right into their laps! Enter Heather (India Eisley), a creepy teenager who happens to wander onto the property in time to prevent disaster; Chloe has found Mark's nailgun, which was conveniently placed out in the open and within reach of a curious 8-year-old. Just based on this random encounter, Mark thinks she'd be perfect for the job, but Linda is reluctant—after all, they did just get burned (pun intended) by not properly researching the last babysitter—so she goes the extra mile to really make sure Heather is who she says she is: by calling the one reference on her resume. When the reference checks out (and it should, since it's Heather herself, not even disguising her voice), the two stop the search immediately, having found the perfect replacement! (Now we're starting to see how they ended up with a dementia-addled oldie).

But things aren't right with the new nanny, something Linda discovers not from all the red flags we've seen up to this point, but after watching video footage in which Heather talks to Chloe for three straight hours. “What could an 18-year-old and an 8-year-old possibly have to talk about for three hours?” she wonders aloud, and becomes obsessed with finding out, hitting up the local electronics store clerk and asking him about in-depth set-ups, an area he's creepily adept at.

Soon, Chloe starts acting strangely toward her mother, as if she wants Heather to be her new mommy, and Heather really starts clamping down on Mark. Will boring ol' Linda pull her family back away from the bizarre clutches of evil? Or will Heather get rid of her competition so that she can have the family she so desperately craves?

This one is worse than most MarVista productions, with terrible acting, consistently awful dialogue, and infuriatingly-illogical plot twists. I know, I know, those are the qualities you're actually looking for in a Lifetime movie, but there's a fine line between a “bad-good” movie, and a “bad-bad” movie, and this one typically entrenches itself in the latter category, with an almost exhausting number of inconsistencies and stupid moments that it would be virtually impossible to remember them all.

Its one “saving grace”- in this case meant as the sole thing that saves it from an even lower score—is Heather's backstory, which is legitimately devastating. Usually Lifetime movies seem to skirt away from truly disturbing material, but her origins add a slight layer of complexity, and empathy, missing from many Lifetime villains. And while her motives still end up being hilariously basic and laughable, it still helps to understand why she acts the way she does, rather than just having her be some one-dimensional caricature. On the downside, the sudden burst of seriousness does underscore some of the (unintentional) goofy fun, by injecting a real underscore of sadness, though it's still so bad that the laughs resume shortly after the shock wears off.

If you're a purveyor of trashy made-for-TV movies, Nanny Cam might have what you're looking for, but for me, I learned the hard way that too much of a bad thing can be...well, just bad.

RATING: 3/10

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