This dreary 2025 're-imagining' of a crowd-favourite 90s schlocker seems to be aiming for a more glossy and sophisticated take on the material and falls short of the mark, as it re-tells the story of a young woman (Polly, played by Maika Monroe) who inveigles her way into the home of under-pressure career woman Caitlin (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as an indispensable home-help/babysitter and manipulates them to her own destructive ends. Here, the film wastes no time in laying out Polly's deep-rooted problems and malicious intentions from the outset with a complete lack of subtlety. It feels very one-note, not helped by a constantly whining soundtrack/soundscape that irritates quickly. Maika Monroe and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are both very strong actresses, but here their range feels mostly (and disappointingly) blunted. A couple of quite gory deaths seem jarring fail to lift the generally dour approach taken this time.
