The babysitter (Samara Weaving) is not back in this Netflix sequel to a movie whose sole redeeming feature was Samara Weaving.

Two years after thwarting a cabal of Satanists, Cole (Judah Lewis) is even more cowardly and bullied than ever, as though the film is acknowledging the pointlessness of its predecessor. The logical progression of the franchise would be to make Cole the babysitter this time. Instead, McG sends him to a lakeside cabin to be hounded by the Satanists who died in the first film and not the one good character who actually survived. To add insult to injury, Weaving is replaced by a Poundland Chloë Grace Moretz (Emily Alyn Lind), and when Weaving does eventually show up she looks like she’d rather be licking a cactus.

This sequel opts for a more is more approach; more deaths, more references, more obnoxious. The most shocking aspect is that it took four writers to come up with lines like: “I feel like Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 trying to convince everyone that robots are real.” You remember how Sarah Connor had to do that. The four writers think it’s clever to be dumb as long as you’re saying “Fortnite” or “Deliverance” every other line. Rather than affectionate homage, the film emits barely concealed contempt for the genre, sneering “aren’t horror movies dumb?” where Scream said “aren’t horror movies interesting?”

McG doubles down on what one hopes is a deliberately nasty aesthetic, ruining potentially fun kills with bad CGI, and potentially parodic elements with humour so lazy it has no discernible pulse. The Babysitter: Killer Queen is cynical to the point of making the Friday the 13th franchise seem quaint and innocent by comparison. Come back Jason. All is forgiven. Please put this knockoff Simon from The Inbetweeners out of our misery.