It is curious that "The Captive Nanny" and "The Au Pair Nightmare" were films produced during the pandemic. The screenplays are built around the same narrative formula and character types. Perhaps the Lifetime production team was attempting to economize by building two films around one scenario.
The focus in both films is on a dedicated nanny who accepts a job in a household where the two strange parents are keeping a child a virtual prisoner. In the case of "The Captive Nanny," Chloe accepts the job at a time when she has broken up with her boyfriend Rob. She relishes the opportunity to care for little Tommy. They regularly play a game of hide-and-go-seek in which the tag line is "Ready or Not!!!" There will eventually come a time where Tommy's secret hiding place will be a matter of life and death for Chloe.
In both "The Captive Nanny" and "The Au Pair Nightmare," the nanny character is far too slow in recognizing that her employers are sociopaths. Slowly, Chloe recognizes that Emily is obsessed with a singer named Baz Martin whom she has been stalking for years and now wants to use Chloe to assist her in going backstage through the efforts of Chloe's ex-boyfriend Rob.
In addition to failing to recognize the pathology in Emily, Chloe is also passive as she fails to stand up to her employers and try to escape from the home. The film's climax was clumsy in the mad scramble backstage at the theater, followed by an equally unbelievable denouement in which Chloe and Rob implausibly are able to adopt young Tommy.
I gave "The Au Pair Nightmare" the score of 7, based on the over-the-top dragon lady Alessandra. Her counterpart, Emily, in "The Captive Nanny" was much more subdued and less interesting. The static nature of the latter film and the awkward ending resulted in an average film in a recycled screenplay, and hence the score of 5.
The focus in both films is on a dedicated nanny who accepts a job in a household where the two strange parents are keeping a child a virtual prisoner. In the case of "The Captive Nanny," Chloe accepts the job at a time when she has broken up with her boyfriend Rob. She relishes the opportunity to care for little Tommy. They regularly play a game of hide-and-go-seek in which the tag line is "Ready or Not!!!" There will eventually come a time where Tommy's secret hiding place will be a matter of life and death for Chloe.
In both "The Captive Nanny" and "The Au Pair Nightmare," the nanny character is far too slow in recognizing that her employers are sociopaths. Slowly, Chloe recognizes that Emily is obsessed with a singer named Baz Martin whom she has been stalking for years and now wants to use Chloe to assist her in going backstage through the efforts of Chloe's ex-boyfriend Rob.
In addition to failing to recognize the pathology in Emily, Chloe is also passive as she fails to stand up to her employers and try to escape from the home. The film's climax was clumsy in the mad scramble backstage at the theater, followed by an equally unbelievable denouement in which Chloe and Rob implausibly are able to adopt young Tommy.
I gave "The Au Pair Nightmare" the score of 7, based on the over-the-top dragon lady Alessandra. Her counterpart, Emily, in "The Captive Nanny" was much more subdued and less interesting. The static nature of the latter film and the awkward ending resulted in an average film in a recycled screenplay, and hence the score of 5.