The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs

The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs (also known as "The Baby-sitter" or "The Sitter") is an urban legend that dates back to the 1960s about a teenage girl babysitting children who receives telephone calls from a man who continually asks her to "check the children". It has been adapted for several movies, including Black Christmas, When a Stranger Calls, When a Stranger Calls Back, Foster's Release, and Amusement. It has also been covered in the television programs Freaky Stories and Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed.

The legend

A teenage girl is babysitting at night. The children have been put to bed upstairs and the babysitter is downstairs, watching television. The phone rings, and she hears at the end of the line either silence, a strange voice laughing, or heavy breathing. She at first dismisses the calls as a prank call, but as she prepares to hang up, a sinister voice asks her to "check the children." When she asks who it is, the caller hangs up. Rather than checking on the children, the teenager decides to ignore the call and goes back to watching TV. The stranger calls back several times, each time becoming more persistent and aggressive.
Eventually the girl becomes worried and calls the police, who ask her to hold the phone for longer, and they will trace the call. When he calls again, he spills the beans, telling her what he has planned. When the police call back, she doesn't pick up the phone out of fear. She runs upstairs to find the children dead, and the mad axeman sitting on the bed. The mad axeman engages in pursuit with her, catching her, and killing her. The police find them the next day...

Notable variations

• In some tellings, the babysitter does not receive any phone calls but is disturbed by a hideous clown doll (sometimes it's an angel doll). During the night, the babysitter repeatedly leaves the room and returns, and the clown always seems to be in a different position than before. The babysitter calls her employers asking for her permission to remove the doll from the bedroom, and the mother tells her they do not have a clown doll. This version has made its way into the annals of internet "creepypasta." This is most likely a version inspired by the movie Poltergeist. The film Amusement also includes a babysitter troubled by a sinister clown doll.

• The number of children varies in different versions; sometimes one, other times, two or three. Also the children rarely survive in the story, sometimes having been murdered by the man before he called the babysitter.

• Sometimes in the story, the killer gives a certain time that he'll kill the children and when he'll come for the sitter (usually 10:30 pm is the given time).

• Often when the killer makes the phone call, he asks the sitter if she's "checked the children" or the calls start with heavy, deep breathing.

• Sometimes the killer is described as having a weapon like an axe or a sharp knife, or the killer is described as being covered in blood in darker versions he tore the children apart with his bare hands such as in the film When a Stranger Calls

• Other similar legends feature the babysitter herself as the threat to the children.

• In lighter versions of the story, the calls turn out to be a prank by the children using a tape recorder of an adult voice (usually a recording of their father's voice).

• In most versions of the story, the sitter calls the police and they put a tracer on the line. In some versions of the story they arrive just in time to save the children, but in others they are too late.

• There have also been versions where the killer gets away, but the children (and sometimes the sitter) are never seen again such as in When a Stranger Calls Back.

• In most versions, the caller asks the sitter "have you checked the children?" at least three times.

• In one version, the story cuts to several years later. The babysitter is now married with her own children, and she is out for dinner with her husband having hired a babysitter. During the meal in the restaurant, the waiter advises that there is a phone call for her which turns out to be from the same caller who terrorized her years before. This element is used in When a Stranger Calls (1979)

• In about every variation of this tale, the sitter is told that the calls are coming from inside the house.

• A version appears in one of Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books. In this version, the sitter is with the children in the TV room and keeps getting calls from someone laughingly saying "pretty soon now". She has the police trace the call, and they tell her that the man is inside the house, at which point he reveals himself. However, this version ends with the sitter and children escaping and the police arresting the man.