By: Ava Rogha
Let’s talk about Deadly Illusions (2021), a Netflix original that just landed on the platform. With a descent trailer, this new thriller movie caught my attention right away, but did it really fulfil the expectations I had for this highly advertised movie?
Deadly Illusions tells the story of a middle-aged woman and best-selling author, Mary Morrison (Kristin Davis).
Mary is happily married to her husband Tom Morrison, and the couple lives in a mansion with two primary school kids. Although Mary is fully capable of taking care of her kids, she hires a babysitter to watch them so she can focus on writing her new novel.
"I turned into a different person."
The new babysitter Grace (Greer Grammer) seems nice at first, maybe even too nice? But it doesn’t take long until we, as the audience, start seeing red flags. Nonetheless, Mary herself enjoys having Grace around and often invites her to stay for dinner with the family. It almost appears as though she’s obsessed and almost infatuated with the babysitter and her kindness, who is a great motivation and inspiration for her new novel. But, what are Grace’s true intentions?
This movie starts off with a great introduction to the main characters and it is quite easy to tell from the start, that Grace will play an important role in their lives. I’m sure that by now we’ve all at least come across a bunch of crazy “babysitter” horror movies, and can only assume that this one wouldn’t be any different! Wrong.
I can already admit that this is easily one of the worst thrillers I’ve ever seen. Yes, the plot is very different from the other “babysitter” movies, but not for the better!
"We’re going through a massive transition and could really use your help."
Let’s start with the horrible acting. Although Mary’s character is played by Sex and the City actress Kristin Davis, her acting is extremely unauthentic for a 2021 thriller. Everything from her facial expressions, portrayal of emotions to her conversations with other characters come across as artificial. Greer Grammer, who plays Grace, does a better acting job as the psychotic babysitter, especially given that her character is extremely challenging to play. However, I still don’t believe she’s the right fit for a Netflix thriller movie even in the slightest. Other than the acting, I can only comment on how fake the props used in the movie appeared and how poorly the scenes were shot, but obviously that comes with the bad acting.
The plot of the movie did have strong potential, but one can easily say that the writer of Deadly Illusions wasted it. The idea of having a crazy babysitter messing up your life is overused, but I never get tired of watching movies with this concept, good ones being Emelie (2015) and When a Stranger Calls (2006). And although I do not want to spoil the movie for people who are actually considering watching it, I will say that the last 15 minutes were a total waste of time (if you don’t count the rest of the movie).
If you’re still in doubt whether or not this movie is a good watch, let’s look at some comments made by the public:
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