The Sitter (2017) Review – A Pointless and Exploitative English Mess

Welcome to Knockout Horror. Today we are looking at Simon Richardson’s The Sitter (Darkness Wakes or even Charlotte Wakes).

This is absolutely awful

Today’s movie, as you may have guessed, is pretty damn awful. The Sitter is a horror with more alternate titles than reasons to praise it. Also known as Charlotte Wakes and Darkness Wakes, this English horror movie represents the horror debut of Simon Richardson. Richardson also wrote and produced this train wreck. If that isn’t the three horsemen of the shite horror apocalypse, I don’t know what is. On a more positive note, Richardson’s output, since The Sitter, has been mercifully minimal, so that’s something to celebrate.

The crazy thing is, this movie actually starts out quite promising. Our protagonist, Charlotte, is hired to cat watch by an eccentric older couple who just so happen to own an enormous house in the middle of nowhere. Incidentally, this movie was filmed in an actual Oxfordshire haunted house. The crew lived there for two weeks to get the feel of the place. Did they lose the script while they were there?

Anyway. The kooky couple leave and Charlotte checks out the house. We have all of the typical, obligatory, creepy rooms. A wine cellar with no light, a forbidden room belonging to a long dead son, a back door that must stay bolted. It is fairly standard stuff but is quite promising. Charlotte roams around the place showering, peeing with the door open, and making food but it isn’t long before she begins to feel like she is being watched.

And that’s where the problems start

From here on out it is all downhill. Charlotte wakes up sweating, haunted by dreams of some strange creature. Encounters with an odd man in the woods give her cause for concern. A friend’s visit offers a small amount of respite but it’s soon back to wandering the house, hearing strange noises and having bizarre dreams. The dreams involve her being fondled and assaulted, naked, by a strange creature.

“Everything here feels cheap and mega low budget. Direction is horrendous, pacing is a nightmare, and there’s a distinct ‘written on the back of a napkin’ feeling to everything.”

Similarities between this movie and The House of the Devil punch you in the face. Scenes featuring Charlotte pressing a few keys on the piano, followed shortly by her taking a piss feel too familiar to be coincidence. The later parts of the movie pay further “tribute” and it is extremely obvious where some of this film’s inspiration lies. What a shame it doesn’t do it justice.

Everything here feels cheap and mega low budget. Direction is horrendous, pacing is a nightmare, and there’s a distinct “written on the back of a napkin” feeling to everything. Scenes are so jumbled up it can be hard to follow what is going on. Throw in a distinct sense of repetition and this movie quickly becomes an enormous chore to get through.

Not at all tense or scary

The Sitter (Darkness Wakes) is utterly devoid of scares. What starts as a promising horror movie focusing on a vulnerable girl in a scary house quickly loses its way and becomes a messy, directionless, collection of bizarre events. Richardson is completely incapable of utilising this fantastic location to create effective horror. Instead, he opts for nightmare sequences and minor jump scares.

“Richardson is completely incapable of utilising this fantastic location to create effective horror. Instead, he opts for nightmare sequences and minor jump scares.”

Scenes featuring Charlotte bathing are absent of reasons to feel tense. A protracted runtime leaves you feeling exhausted. False scare after false scare create a sense of weariness and the whole thing quickly becomes boring. The strange behaviour of the people around Charlotte suddenly feels less deliberate. It is apparent that Richardson didn’t know what to do with the characters. Instead of introducing them in a relevant and significant manner, he has them stumbling into the road and breaking in to smell Charlotte’s underwear.

The culmination of this is an ending that you likely won’t give two shits about. Again, paying “homage” (re: stealing) from The House of the Devil. The ending features terrible creature design and an even worse final scene. Still, you will be relieved it is over so that’s something. This is a 97-minute long film and it feels every second of it. It is a real chore to get through.

A fantastic, committed performance

The sad thing is, this movie really wastes a committed and effective performance by Aisling Knight. As Charlotte, she is fantastic. Genuinely likeable, it is very easy to root for her. She has believable reactions, portrays emotion well and buys into the project 100%. She even commits fully to the scenes featuring full-frontal nudity, something which this film defaults to a number of times.

“This movie really wastes a committed and effective performance by Aisling Knight. She has believable reactions, portrays emotion well and buys into the project 100%.”

I really believe nudity has its place in horror. Especially in movies where a character is being watched. It adds tons to the suspense and makes the character feel more vulnerable. I can’t help but feel that wasn’t the case here, though. I feel as though Knight was asked to do the scenes purely for viewer titillation. The trailer is even more indicative of this. It is a montage of scenes of her in various states of undress.

If you ask me, I can only assume that Richardson realised this wasn’t going well, scratched out a couple of scenes, and asked Aisling to get naked to prop the movie up. Seeing that her career in movies didn’t really flourish after this, I can’t help but feel sorry for her. I honestly hope she didn’t feel pressured into doing it. Imagine giving your all to a film like this, probably getting paid virtually nothing, getting your kit off and it not even leading to further work. That would suck!

Literally everyone else in this movie is awful. What seems like a deliberately quirky performance by Richard Kilgour quickly starts to feel like he actually can’t act. Side characters are horribly hammy and rob the movie of any seriousness. Bjorn Franklin feels particularly out of place as Charlotte’s boyfriend. A sex scene between the pair is nauseating. Loud kissing noises will have you desperately reaching for the remote. From one misophonia sufferer to another… beware.

Our Scoring Philosophy: A Fair Fight

Horror is a genre that thrives thanks to indie film makers and low budget creators. At Knockout Horror, we firmly believe that every movie that we review deserves a fair fight. That's why we grade on a curve. Our star ratings are all about context, judging a film on what it achieves with the resources it has.

A 4-star rating for a scrappy indie horror made for $10,000 is a testament to its ingenuity and raw power. A 4-star rating for a $100 million blockbuster means it delivered on its epic promises. We don't compare them side-by-side; we celebrate success in every weight class, from the back-alley brawler to the heavyweight champion. Please keep this in mind when considering star ratings.

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