Evil Nanny
Directed by Jared Cohn
Written by Naomi Selfman
Produced by Dylan Vox
Starring Lindsay Elston, Nicole Sterling, and Matthew Pohlkamp
December 27, 2016
Reviewed by Megan Purcell
Evil Nanny has a great concept. Based on a case where a live-in nanny used strict tenant laws to keep a family from firing her, it stars Lindsay Elston as Jenn/Alexa, the nanny who makes it impossible for parents Tim and Fay to get rid of her through legal means. After a very rough start depicting Alexa’s teen years in a foster home, the movie is actually pretty engrossing for an hour or so, until things devolve into an overwrought mess.
Unfortunately the evil nanny herself is the weak link in Evil Nanny. Alexa’s main intimidation tactic is smirking like a teenaged brat, and when she waves a knife around, the first impulse in the viewer is to laugh. She’s not believable when she’s bullying her friend, she’s not believable when she’s seducing the neighbor boy, and she’s definitely not believable when she’s menacing the kids. The movie only works when she’s offscreen. And the character motivation for the ending is non-existent, as though it were shot in a vacuum with no context from the rest of the film.
The fun in a Lifetime movie like this is in its campiness, but this is just embarrassing. If this movie hadn’t been filled with black thug stereotypes and the evil nanny had been the slightest bit believable or interesting, and the ending had made a lick of sense, it could have been a fun throwback TV movie of the week. As it is, it doesn’t even rate being called a thriller movie. Z-grade teen drama, maybe.
