Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead

This is a sassy little comedy of wit and intelligence from the director of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. As Swell, Applegate is appealing and resourceful, while Coogan's dope-head Kenny contributes to a wonderfully dry, on-going marital spoof. Getz is the unctuous boardroom chauvinist to a tee, and Cassidy rounds off the picture's relaxed Cosmo-feminism as Swell's scatty boss. Read full review

Applegate gets by without a false moment in a role that's more serious and has more angles than the airhead she plays on television. I want to see the movies she'll be making in about five years. [07 June 1991, p.E6]

Stephen Herek, who directed Critters and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, nevertheless keeps the story spinning along as if he believed it, and he works well with the actors, especially Cassidy, who plays her dotty career woman with a mixture of brassiness and resilience that's quite engaging; Coogan, a natural young comic who is becoming indispensable in movies like this; and Applegate, who looks very much like a movie star in her major-studio, big-screen debut. [07 June 1991, p.29]