Hush Little Baby (2017 TV Movie) User Reviews

The New Man of the House

[lavatch · 6/10 · 23 March 2021]

In "Nanny Nightmare" (a.k.a., "Hush Little Baby"), a young musician named Owen Leery is quite enterprising in worming his way into the lives of the Bell family. Growing up, Lauren Bell would babysit Owen. Now, Owen has grown into the young man who becomes the "manny" to help Lauren and James manage their busy household. Unbeknownst to the Bells, Owen has been obsessed with Lauren for two decades, and he now seeks to claim what he believes is his birthright in becoming the new man of the house.

Technically, the film was very dark with many of the interior scenes filmed in chiarascuro. The darkness also affected the content with an increasing sense not only of the sinister, but the overtly disturbing in Owen's psychopathic behavior. His murder of James's nice secretary Summer cast a pall on the film, as well as Owen's overall design to kill the young Bell son, Carter. With James and Carter out of the picture, the path will be cleared for Owen to have Lauren and baby Riley all to himself.

Throughout the film, it appeared that Lauren was being too hard on her husband James. First, he was banished to the guest house when Lauren believed (incorrectly) that James was having an affair with Summer. Then, he was banished entirely from the premises after he (correctly) perceived the deranged nature of Owen and gave him a good thrashing.

The close of the film degenerated into the horror genre with a gory stabbing and ax-slashing finale. But the filmmakers reserved their most ghoulish touch for the denouement, when Lauren learns from her bestie Megan that Owen likely substituted his sperm for that of James, and Owen is the father of little Riley. The film's theme song of "Hush Little Baby" thereby takes on a grim irony with the spirit of Owen living on in the DNA of the innocent child.

A few quirks liven up an otherwise standard Lifetime thriller

[mgconlan-1 · 5/10 · 2 July 2017]

"Nanny Nightmare" (was "Nightmare Nanny" taken already?) is yet another story about an ordinary suburban couple who find themselves terrorized by a nanny (a male this time — a "manny," to use the horrible term that actually appears in Brian McAuley's script), though this time there are a few interesting wrinkles. The couple are James (Brady Smith) and Lauren (Erin Cahill) Bell, though James's job has consumed so much of his time he's hardly ever home and indeed the couple have formally separated, though James is still living on their property in the guest house. Lauren suspects that James isn't just working those late nights, especially since his assistant is gorgeous young red-headed woman Summer (Elyse Dufour), who when we see them together looks upon him with such goop-eyed admiration it's clear she wants considerably more than just a working relationship with him. James and Lauren have two children, teenage boy Carter (Tyler Huth) and baby Riley (Oaklyn White), who was conceived in vitro. The "manny" — though it's clear he's a good deal more than that — is Owen Leary (Jake Manley), a young man of almost unearthly beauty (and director Brian Herzlinger exploited that by giving us quite a few luscious shots of him topless, including one in which he clandestinely photographs Summer in bed while himself wearing nothing but blue underpants — yum!) who was formerly a neighbor of James and Lauren — indeed, Lauren remembers baby-sitting him years before.

Owen shows up and in the manner of Lifetime's villains immediately makes himself useful, fixing the house's front door and dryer — things James had been promising to do but hadn't got around to — wiring a video "nanny cam" in baby Riley's bedroom to go along with the audio system Lauren already had in there (the assumption behind McAuley's script seems to be that any truly responsible parents bug their kids and spy on them 24/7) and, unbeknownst to our lead couple, planting video devices in the rest of the house and wiring them so he can spy on them on a bank of three computer monitors in his own home. Owen ostensibly lives alone with his mother Beth and is also an aspiring musician, though the only evidence of that we actually hear is a few power chords he plays while ostensibly giving Carter guitar lessons, though he tells James and Lauren that it's because he's an aspiring musician that he's had to have so many different kinds of jobs he can do just about anything for them they need. In any event, Owen's obsession with Lauren leads him to do all manner of things, including cruise Summer in a bar, get himself invited back to her place, and when she's asleep he shoots cell-phone photos of her in her underwear and, with his skills as a computer hacker, plants the pics on James' phone and leads Lauren to demand he leave the guest house and take his carcass somewhere else. (Quite a few Lifetime movies feature actually or hypothetically cuckolded-on wives peremptorily throwing out their straying husbands instead of sticking it out and fighting for them.)

"Nanny Nightmare" is actually a pretty good Lifetime movie, helped not only by Jake Manley's gorgeousness but Herzlinger's skillfully Gothic direction — the last 20 minutes or so look almost like a horror film — even though the script is the usual Lifetime silliness (I've seen McAuley's name on quite a few of these Lifetime entertainments before) and aside from Manley's relatively understated performance as the psycho, it isn't acted particularly well either, though I give Tyler Huth points as Carter for making it believable that at times he'd welcome Owen as a sort of older brother, and at other times he'd just be revolted by him and his smarmy act — in essence he's the equivalent of Thelma Ritter's character in "All About Eve," on to the slimeball before anyone else in the dramatis personae.

Everyone is wacko

[Jackbv123 · 4/10 · 7 August 2021]

I am a fan of Erin Cahill, so I watched this despite not caring much for the genre.

This is pretty much what you'd expect for the type of movie. The creep factor is very high. I also clued in early on what comes out at the end.

The acting is fair, but all the main characters are idiots. Owen is obvious. Did Lauren grow up in a cave, or is she really in love with Owen? What she puts up with regarding Own is beyond belief. James - paint a sign on your forehead telling the cops to arrest you. And you are losing major points with your wife with everything you do. And you're a wimp.

The FF button got plenty of use after about half way.

Psycho Manny.

[CranberriAppl · 5 March 2022]

Erin Cahill and Brady Smith are great. However, this movie wants us to believe that an affair, alleged or real, is somehow worse than Lauren (EC) inviting this psycho into their lives. It's James that realizes Owen is not right and that things start happening when he ingrained himself into their lives. It's James (Smith) that figures everything out. Lauren literally invited Owen in as a replacement dad of sorts. She never apologizes to her husband and she never apologizes to her preteen son. Get outta here, Lifetime. There's always this push to be all like "man bad," and it's hardly ever (definitely wasn't in this movie) acknowledged that the women make poor decisions bc they are lonely and hurt. Owen said something like "get out of our house," to James after the two of them fought and yet Lauren NEVER called him on it. This was AFTER he kissed her! Sorry, and I like Erin (mostly on Hallmark), but she was not the long-suffering character they wanted her to be. I liked the son, Carter. I liked that he wanted his dad around bc it showed that James wasn't all bad. Not a fan of when fathers are kept from their children.

Owen's obsession somewhat made sense. Since his villain status was known to us from the start, I think some flashbacks to his childhood with Lauren as his sitter would have added some depth. The movie could have shown us why he was so attached to her. I mean the shrine was typical nutjob, so that was there, but what about her made him so insane? I'm so glad the movie didn't go so far to have them sleep together. That would have been terrible. She already shouldn't have been so inappropriate with him. Why are you talking about your marriage and children with him?

The ending is kind of crazy. Not sure how I feel about it, but I didn't see it coming.

Terrible for Women...

[vnssyndrome89 · 2/10 · 16 May 2022]

Brain McAuley, the screenwriter, needs a clue. This could have been decent Lifetime faire, but the negative messages within it, can't be ignored. What are those messages? How did I know this was written by a man, before I even looked? Well, here's how - the cheating husband is the good guy, the overworked, cheated on, harried housewife is the idiot, the teenage son blames his mother for his father's indiscretions, etc . That sounds like a man wrote it to me. This writer actually included a scene where the teenage son, tells his mother that she's the one screwing up the family. She hires a manny (a trusted childhood friend) because her husband is too useless to fix the front door, & the baby is almost killed in the road. We never address these issues, the husband cheats, he's never home, he leaves responsibilities (dangerous ones) undone. But she's the one who screwed up the family?! She wouldn't have been targeted by a sociopath, if she'd had a PARTNER to help. The writer is really saying she screwed it up, because she didn't just accept her husband's cheating, & lower her expectations with her him. If she'd just done those things, (& worked herself into an early grave) she wouldn't have been targeted. Yet, we never address why she needed help to begin with (her husband's absent & useless). With this much victim blaming of the mother, and terrible messages aimed at it's target audience, this man BRIAN MCAULEY SHOULD NEVER WRITE FOR LIFETIME AGAIN! We, as women, should expect more for ourselves, and for our children. It is not ok to get cheated on, it's not ok to teach our sons violence is the answer, it's not ok to teach our sons women should put up with cheating & violence, it's not ok, to put up with ANYTHING, just for the sake of the family. This movie, & those like it, perpetrate negative stereotypes, that men can't help it, & women should just lower their expectations. Well, I'm tired of lowering mine, how bout you ladies?

Wacko male babysitter / maid

[phd_travel · 7/10 · 19 October 2019]

A woman who just had a baby hires a teen boy she used to babysit to help round the house. She knows him he isn't a stranger so it wasn't a foolish thing. Of course from the title he turns out to be obsessive over her.

The cast is nice to look at. Erin Cahill is pretty as the mom. The boy acts well.

One silly thing is that they made it like they couldn't afford a new dryer with the hubby working so hard yet could pay for a manny. Also silly that the husband would resent the help so early on. Should have been grateful for the help.

The final showdown is a bit too dimly lit. There isn't much explanation for the wacko's obsession but there is a nice little twist at the end that ties things up.