“Yo… we’re da babysitters.” – one of the Twin Sitters
It’s always tough talking about Bad Movies that are comedies, because you can only say “it wasn’t funny” so many ways. While that’s true for Twin Sitters, it manages to transcend it’s terrible, hack comedy and rise to something far greater. First, let’s talk about the leads: The Barbarian Brothers.
David Paul and Peter Paul are two bodybuilders who clearly had tried to follow Schwarzenegger’s lead, almost to a T. Their first film The Barbarians, was a clear knockoff of Conan the Barbarian and Twin Sitters is the “Kindergarten Cop” of the Paul Bros career. Which is doubly great because the twins in Twin Sitters actually played the lead kid from Kindergarten Cop.
Twin Sitters is about a pair of twins, who are babysitters. So they’re TWIN sitters. But they’re also babysitting a set of twins, so they’re also twin SITTERS. DOUBLE MEANING TITLE ALERT. The Paul Bros play a couple muscle-bound waiters who want to open their own restaurant . The bank denies them a loan, so they force-feed the banker their marinara sauce.
This movie misses the mark so hard, it’s incredible. It’s “Bio-Dome” funny. I’m talking shit like when the Paul Bros get into a fight with a chef and CRAWL THROUGH THE DUDE’S LEGS to get away type shit. At one point, the Pauls toast their glasses and THE GLASSES SHATTER BECAUSE THEY’RE SO STRONG.
They talk like cavemen doing an impression of an Italian New Yorker. Xylophones constantly play in the background during gun fights. There’s a gunfight at a playground. A bad guy is defeated there after taking a tetherball to the nuts.
Our “heroes” the Pauls, don’t do a single likeable thing. They’re actually huge dicks to people, and incredibly early-90s lame. Either Jake or Peter progressively turns into a bird by the end of the film. Small feathers are woven into his hair, and it becomes more egregious as time goes by. They also drive a MONSTER TRUCK (because omg they’re such big dudes) but luckily every time they drive, there’s no traffic both ways because the truck takes up the entire road.
The person most at fault for this movie, is actually the costume “designer.” This movie has the most bizarre wardrobe choices for the Pauls. Every scene is like they had an off-set wager as to who could look the most ridiculous, but the movie plays it off as though they’re hip and cool and counter-culture.
EVERY. SINGLE. CHOICE, in this movie, is BIZARRE. At one point, somebody uses a regular leaf blower to BLAST A MAN THROUGH A BAY WINDOW. At the end of the movie, to save the day, the Pauls call on all their twin friends (only two sets) to help… and then the Barbarian Bros don’t even save the day! Some random DOJ officer does, by shooting evil George Lazenby. Oh, yeah… George Lazenby is in this, too.
This movie was a LOT of fun. Maybe it’s because I’ve had to slog through some real shitters lately, but Twin Sitters was a breath of fresh air. I absolutely recommend.
CHOICE LINES:
“There’s never a drive-by shooting when you need one.”
“You better be a hot-dog vendor because your fly is down.”
“Have a nice day…. NOT!” (Shoots man in the face)
Watch the trailer for Twin Sitters (1994):
