The Guardian *** (1990, Jenny Seagrove, Dwier Brown, Carey Lowell, Brad Hall, Miguel Ferrer) – Classic Movie Review 7252

‘Tonight, while the world is asleep… an ancient evil is about to awaken.’ Director William Friedkin’s 1990 baby-sitter-from-hell movie The Guardian is a gripping horror film whose quality and entertainment value went scarcely noticed on release. It grossed $17 million in the US, but now deserves re-evaluation, especially as another horror work of the director of The Exorcist.

A well-cast Jenny Seagrove is suitably strange and strict in a total and almost unrecognisable unofficial reworking of the old Bette Davis part in The Nanny (1965) as Camilla, an evil nanny hired to live in with yuppie marrieds Phil and Kate (Dwier Brown and Carey Lowell) to look after their young son, a baby boy named Jake.

Maybe The Guardian becomes silly by the end, but along the way there are a lot of good shocks and scary sequences, and director Friedkin reaps the rewards of taking the hokum seriously.

The screenplay by Steven Volk, Dan Greenburg and William Friedkin is based on Dan Greenburg’s novel The Nanny.

Also in the cast are Brad Hall, Miguel Ferrer, Natalia Nogulich and Pamela Brull.

The Guardian is directed by William Friedkin, runs 98 minutes, is made by Nanny Productions, is released by Universal Pictures, is written by Steven Volk, Dan Greenburg and William Friedkin, based on Dan Greenburg’s novel The Nanny, is shot in Technicolor by John A Alonzo, is produced by Joe Wizan and scored by Jack Hues, with special effects by Phil Cory and production designs by Gregg Fonseca.

As well as the theatrical cut credited to Friedkin, there is a modified cut for cable television, which is credited to the generic pseudonym Alan Smithee. It includes new scenes, including one in the hospital, different dream sequences, one of the nanny waking up the wife, and alternate angles for other scenes. It ends differently and omits much of the gore. Friedkin says knows nothing of the cable TV version.

The Nanny (1965) is based on a novel by Marryam Modell (writing as Evelyn Piper). The Guardian also bears comparison with the slightly later The Hand that Rocks the Cradle (1992).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7252

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com