Emelie (on Netflix streaming) starts out with a bit of a startle: teenaged Anna, walking down the street, talking on her phone to a friend about tonight's new babysitting gig, is abducted in broad daylight. Next scene: "Anna" is picked up by the dad for a new babysitting gig since the family's regular sitter, Maggie, canceled on short notice. The parents are a little concerned about a new sitter but are excited enough about an evening out that they push their worries aside. Before long, however, the new sitter is revealed to be not quite right. First of all, her name is Emelie, not Anna. She lets the three kids paint on the walls, she feeds nine-year-old Sally's pet hamster to eleven-year-old Jake's python in front of the kids and she shows the parents' sex tape to the younger two children. She is rough with Sally and both teases and ignores Jake, but it's four-year-old Christopher of whom she seems fond. During Christopher's bedtime story, we get Emelie's backstory: she was a young, single mom who tragically lost her baby. She snapped and now she's looking for a replacement, aided by some whackadoo guy. Jake is a smart kid and he gets suspicious; when she slips cold medicine into the kids' drinks, he makes himself vomit it up, then he has to try to rescue his unconscious siblings before Emelie runs off with Chris.
There are some tense moments to Emelie, probably more so if you have kids of your own. Any violence happens off-screen and there's not that much to be scared about. I felt it was more like a hard-core Home Alone than anything particularly scary, so if you're looking for something slightly jumpy, kids-in-peril-but-not-really thriller, this should do the trick.
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