Point by Numbers: The Babysitter IV

Alright. So, it's time. Time to finally conclude The Babysitter quadrillogy. And after Stine just blew chunks everywhere with the ending of the third book, it's a crap shoot where we go from here. I have heard stories in the past that this one is one that even fans of the series say is the worst one. And given it's the last book in the series, maybe that treads water. Will I be as angry as before? Has Stine learned from the shitshow that was the third book? I doubt it, but still, let's talk about The Babysitter IV.

All told, the art of the cover is fine. Fitting the mold of the covers before it. An image made prevalent in the past. Jenny Jeffers listening in fear on the phone as likely another threat made on her life. Although after the events prior, is this the real life or is it just fantasy? Actions in real time or visions dancing in her head? We the reader know not where that answer lies. But, though we see no signs of imminent worry, we know that the hornets nest is nearby and that all that glitters is not gold. Will we wish for simplicity or fall victim to madness? We press ever forward.

Jennifer Jeffers once babysat for the Hagen family, only for the patriarch, Michael Hagen, to end up trying to murder her. Penance for the babysitter who neglected his daughter's death. In an attempt to kill Jenny, he fell to his death in a rock quarry. For the next two years the visions and paranoia continued to haunt her. She eventually visited her cousin Debra and once again began to fear that Mr. Hagen was somehow alive and after her once more. Only for Debra to soon realize that this was all Jenny's doing. That she had broken to the point that she believed she was also Mr. Hagen. We end the third book with Jenny being taken to seek psychiatric help.

Now in the third year since the initial incident, Jenny is still having visions about Mr. Hagen, only this time she takes out that rage with an aluminum baseball bat on a dummy. Her doctor, Dr. Morton, thinks that this is a good sign of her improvement. See, following the whole incident the year prior, Jenny spent a year in a mental hospital, trying to finally get Mr. Hagen out of her head, and now that she seems to be on the right track, she's been let out. In fact, Jenny's seemingly recovered a lot. She still has her friends, Rick and Claire, her mother has a new boyfriend named Winston, and she's still with Cal, even after a year apart. He's in a foul mood on account of his boss, a man named Hansen, chewing into him for his work at the gas station, to the point that Cal's ready to quit. But even Jenny thinks that's a bad idea since his dad was recently fired as foreman of a box factory. Shouldn't have let Bart Simpson turn into a box.

Late into the night, the phone rings and Jenny immediately panics. Look, after the last book I'm already sick to death of these same threats, ESPECIALLY after the shit Stine pulled at the end of the third book. But it's just Claire. After the call, Jenny then hears a strange animal noise outside and swears she can see a blonde boy in her yard. The next day, a new family moves next door, the Warsaw family. Jenny meets Mrs. Warsaw who asks Jenny to watch her kids Sean and Meredith while she goes shopping. Jenny is unfortunately on the spot, but also realizes that she's babysitting again. So the worries already kick in. She also meets Seth, Sean's twin. Both boys are thin with white-blond hair and almost impossible to tell apart. Jenny asks if the kids like their new house, but they say they don't on account that they believe it's haunted. 

Sean and Meredith start fighting with one another. Sean calling Meredith "Piggy", and Meredith mentioning that his mother nicknamed Sean "Bunny Rabbit", which even Jenny finds odd. She manages to have the kids play a game of "slap ball" and it diffuses the situation long enough for Mrs. Warsaw to return home. As she heads home, she thinks something brushed her neck, but nobody's around. She then spots a figure in the attic. Something human, but it's tricky to tell as the face seems almost nonexistent. She visits another of her doctors, a woman named Dr. Simonson, and says that things have been fine. No more Hagen visions and she even babysat with no dilemma. But, she neglects to mention the figure in the attic.

Mrs. Warsaw offers Jenny another babysitting job and since she went through well enough before, she ultimately accepts the offer. What's the worst that could happen? It's not like every time you've been around babysitting, things have escalated worse and worse for you. 

The babysitting job seems no different from the brief watch as Meredith and Sean again fight over everything, including playing a hockey game on SNES. Seth, however, seems calmer than Sean and more the voice to help Jenny get a grip as to what's going on. As she sends the kids to bed, she again begins to think she hears something in the attic. She goes to check, but Seth stops her, saying that their mom doesn't want anyone to go up in the attic. Besides, the plant dad's probably in the basement. She relaxes and soon gets a call that says it's him. Jenny thinks that him is Mr. Hagen until Cal reveals it's just him. She then gets another weird feeling on her neck, and thinks it must be the kids. When she goes to check on the twins, their room is empty. But all of that turned out to just be a prank and they're fine.

But as Jenny relaxes, she hears someone downstairs. And the sound of glass breaking It's Cal who, despite Jenny telling him not to come over, still came over, accidentally breaking a vase in the process. After getting rid of Cal and a call from Mrs. Warsaw, Jenny gets another whispery call telling her to get out or she'll die, too. As she's worried about this, she remembers another girl at the mental hospital named Becka, who similar to Jenny was going through her own trauma. So neither girl talked about it and just talked of other things. Becka left the hospital before Jenny did, though not before Jenny spots her tearing a teddy bear to shreds that was given to her by her younger sister. At least it was a STUFFED animal for once? Stine showing restraint.

Despite her best efforts to find out if it was the boys, when Jenny sees them, they're knocked out. Fearing that this is all her bad thoughts returning, Jenny decides that maybe it's time to call it quits on being a babysitter. Now, if only someone told R.L. Stine that three books ago. After a pretty good night with Cal and her friends where they all went bowling, Jenny returns home, but notices a figure in the attic window of the Warsaw house. Of a girl who seems to be saying "Help me". She also spots the mysterious boy again. She then has a nightmare where Cal hands her over her bowling bag, but inside is Claire's head. Which, freaky for sure, but compared to literally the face melting of the last book is pretty tame by comparison.

Jenny wakes up to see her mother in her room. She reveals that there have been stories of a prowler in the neighborhood. She didn't want to tell Jenny on account of the Mr. Hagen stuff, which hey, good Stine parenting for once. But it's enough for Jenny to think the boy she saw a few days ago may be the prowler. And, despite not wanting to babysit, Jenny babysits the Warsaw kids again. When she goes to cut a cake for them, she again feels a force grabbing her arm, trying to stab her with the knife. She manages to drop the knife, but still has no idea what just happened. Again, when she goes to watch the dishes, she again feels a force trying to push her hand into the garbage disposal. Sean is about to tell Jenny something, but when Seth arrives, he zips his lip.

Later, Jenny tells Claire about the incident, but worries that if she tells Dr. Simonson, she'll be locked up again. That night, Jenny is outside seeing if the mystery boy will show up again. Suddenly she gets shoved by someone. It's the neighborhood dog, with the very on the nose name of "Killer". When she returns home it appears that Mrs. Jeffers knows about the incidents at the Warsaw house and how it looks like Jenny is going insane again. Mainly because Claire told her about all of this. Which, yeah it's ratting out a friend, but on the other hand, Jenny's track record kind of made this a necessary thing to do. Jenny says that she knows she's not crazy and that something is going on over there. She's doing one more babysitting job to finally get the answers she needs.

Jenny babysits again and the twins both confess to being the ones outside, but they then say that they were only fooling. After Jenny gets the three kids to sleep however, she again feels the chill with the voice telling her that she's going to die tonight. She panics and runs into the bathroom where she sees the reflection of Seth who again tells her that the babysitter dies tonight. She hurls a vase into the mirror, shattering it. She cuts herself in the process just as Mrs. Warsaw returns to see the damage. Jenny tries to tell her about the twins, but Mrs. Warsaw is confused. She has no twins. You see, and holy shit he did it again, Jenny had apparently heard a story about a murdered boy and like Mr. Hagen has been imagining the whole thing.

But Jenny knows she's not making this up. That it's not like the Hagen incident. Later that night, she again sees a girl in the attic of the Warsaw house calling for help. And Jenny is finally going to free her and get this over with. And, since nobody in an R.L. Stine book knows what a lock is, she manages to sneak into the house through the backdoor and makes her way to the attic. She gets grabbed by Seth who tells her that he is dead and that the girl in the attic is his old babysitter. The one who killed him. He's been a ghost the entire time and the only ones who could see him were Sean, Meredith and Jenny. But Jenny enters anyway and soon finds a ghostly figure of a girl named Monica who says that it was actually Seth who killed her. Oh, so NOW supernatural events can happen? This is a universe where zombie Mr. Hagen could have happened at any moment?

Monica says that it was actually Seth who was the evil one. Who killed her and left her corpse in the attic. Sean and Meredith knew but were threatened by Seth not to tell. Jenny is conflicted, but given Seth's threats earlier, she picks Monica to believe. Monica then grabs her and is about to throw her down the stairs. And then she... doesn't? Because she just wanted Jenny to believe her? The two ghosts fight until they swirl into nothingness. Mrs. Jeffers shows up and Jenny tells her that it's all over now and she doesn't have to worry about anything anymore. And maybe she'll keep on babysitting. But this is mercifully the last book. As in also Stine's last book for point. So, he doubly failed on sticking the landing. 

That's an academy record.

Holy crap this book didn't have to exist. Holy crap the previous one definitely didn't have to exist. I think I can tell what this book's true intention was. Well, to make money for one, but to be a make good for dropping the ball with the previous Babysitter book. It would explain a focus less on Hagen than ever before as well as actually adding a supernatural element to the book after teasing readers in the prior two. This was Stine's make good. And it's still bad. Granted, not infuriating like the last book, but still feels like Stine just shoehorned everything at the last second to add the ghost stuff. And even that could still all be interpreted as being in Jenny's head. That all of this was another sign of poor mental health. 

But it's also too little, too late, Stine. If supernatural elements exist in the end of the series, why then would we just not have zombie Hagen? If ghosts exist, so can zombies. And sure, nonsensical swerve in its own right, but not at the expense of destroying the credibility of your protagonist and exploiting her mental health. You don't get a cookie because you threw this all in at the last possible moment. And part of me does think it was last possible moment. I think the original plan for the basement girl was Brenda. And given that this would also be a bad showcasing of mental health by making her the villain or having her be locked up for being "too crazy" then sure, ghost girl we never met as our villain. Necessary sacrifice. 

I really liked the first Babysitter. It tread no new ground, but that was also for the best. Because at least there Stine seemed like he had a thru-line for what he wanted this story to be. And it's so self-contained that there really was no need to follow up on it. But it also sold well so he tried to make a series out of it. And with each book to follow you can see the premise lacking more and more. Losing any touches that worked and Stine desperately trying to put that square peg in the round hole. It's a further example of why Stine and sequels don't mix. Because they either ignore the events of the past or he tries too hard to force things that shouldn't. Recurring events as the driving force of their character's actions. And he just cannot do it.

Here's also the wildest thing about this whole situation. I don't really hate this one. The book has no reason to exist and adding supernatural stuff was way past when it could have mattered reeks of desperation and a stupid way to end this book. But for as bad as that ending is, the third book's final few pages was just pure garbage and a total character assassination of Jenny, who should have finished her arc with the first book or at the very least the second. You don't have to make everything a series, Stine. Especially when you can't stick the landing. So ultimately this book just lightly grazes above an F, but still is just not worth a read. If you want the Babysitter story, read the first and maybe book two and just avoid the third and fourth with a passion. The Babysitter IV gets a C-.