Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Written and Directed by Ehrlend Hollingsworth
How is it that babysitting, traditionally the lowest common denominator flexible starter job, is so dangerous? Dooba Dooba is a lo-fi found footage film exploring the perils of a woman babysitting an odd girl full of tricks and dark secrets. If you think you know babysitter horror, think again; this movie has some wild twists. The film creates a moat of anxiety which will have you twitching from the dramatic irony of knowing too much, while the characters head blindly into awful decisions.
Babysitting is a proud, tried-and-true horror trope, and Dooba Dooba has found a new dark corner to explore. Classically, the babysitter is subject to a third-party killer (Halloween, A Stranger Calls, Here for Blood). Sometimes the sitter is the issue (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Emelie). Dooba Dooba belongs to the third variety, where the children are the scary things. The best comparison would be You Better Watch Out, or The Boy. If you know, you know.
In an age where even independent filmmakers have access to 4K hi-def technology, it can be jarring to see a decidedly low-tech method of filmmaking. The film was shot for a paltry sum of $11,000. Like Paranormal Activity, the movie relies on static security camera footage and has the found footage feel, without the nausea-inducing shaky cam aspects of this sub-genre. When the film zooms in on the scene, the image quality gets very grainy.
What separates this film from its found footage peers is the acting performance. Like most micro-budget indie films, Dooba Dooba features a cast of unknowns. However, rather than feeling like amateur night, the performances flowed naturally, as if you were a voyeur watching this unfold. The found-footage stylings assisted in the verisimilitude.
The Cast of Dooba Dooba
- Amna Vegha plays Amna, an aspiring singer who has to take up a babysitting gig to make ends meet.
- Betsy Sligh plays Monroe Jefferson, an anxiety-addled home-schooled junior in high school. She dislikes being left at home and enjoys games and challenges.
- Erin O’Meara plays Taylor Jefferson, Monroe’s doting mother.
- Winston Haynes plays Wilson Jefferson, Monroe’s intense father.
- Billy Hulsey plays Roosevelt, a special guest star in Monroe’s video.
A Short Synopsis of Dooba Dooba
In the opening credits, the audience is informed that this film is:
A final project presented by Monroe Jefferson to the adjudicatiors, in partial fulfilment for a degree with honors of high school equivalency.”
It stars the entire Jefferson family and Amna Vegha, who came to babysit Monroe on Friday, May 13, 2022. When Amna arrives, Taylor and Wilson inform her that they are heading out for a party and won’t be back until morning. This party is going to involve lots of alcohol, and they don’t want to drive back home intoxicated. Monroe suffers from anxiety due to her brother having been murdered in the room next to her when they were kids. Wilson explains that, due to the incident, the house is now equipped with numerous security cameras. (Setting necessary for the found footage format.)
When brought upstairs to meet Monroe, Taylor calls out “Dooba Dooba” as an announcement to Monroe that the approaching footsteps are friendly and familiar. After the parents take off, Monroe is a bundle of manic energy. She is full of unvarnished honesty, raw suspicions, and crushing self-doubt. She knows that it isn’t normal for a sixteen-year-old to be babysat, and she wants to be a normal girl for once.
But she’s anything but normal. Monroe is a master manipulator. She fakes injuries and insists on playing games like truth or dare that put Amna into impossible situations. Amna is far too sensitive and passive to counter the wild fluctuations that Monroe presents. Monroe’s personality fluctuates between needy and vulnerable and angry and accusatory. Meanwhile, the audience is informed that a boy is being held prisoner somewhere on the premises. Hmmm. Suspicious!
Eventually, Amna gets worn down. When an opportunity to bail out of her predicament arrives, she calls upon her sister to pull off “The Old Switcheroo.” It’s a big, high-risk, high-reward decision that is being made in a moment of desperation. This whole situation has gotten out of hand, and Amna is trying to get out while she still can.
Evaluation of Dooba Dooba
Here is a piece of advice: Only babysit kids you know. Also, if there seems to be something a little off with the parents, and you get THIS backstory told to you? Turn around and get back in your car. Unfortunately, Amna is too polite to say no. The power of Found Footage comes from authenticity. It feels unvarnished, and the association with home movies creates a veneer of honesty. As a result, Dooba Dooba reels you in and pours dread sauce all over you.
It isn’t the payoff so much as the build-up with this movie. Monroe has the upper hand in all of her dealings with Amna. Amna does not have any real authority here, despite being nominally responsible for overseeing Monroe. Betsy Sligh channels Rhoda Penmark (The Bad Seed) as a sociopathic kid for the ages. Upon second watch, I recalled the opening credits, where this was a staged presentation, set up by Monroe. However, who she would send this damning evidence to for certification is dubious. This film wouldn’t get her a GED, but rather time in the big house.
Amna Vegha is the audience’s POV perspective. There are multiple moments where Amna must be considering “Is this worth it?” or “How did I get myself into this position?” You come to understand why Amna makes the fateful decisions she does, but at the same time, this has felt like a trap from the very beginning. This feels like a raw film. Raw looking. Raw nerves.
By the end of the film, it isn’t Monroe who is suffering from anxiety. It’s the audience.
The Production
Dooba Dooba proceeds quickly, with a runtime of only 77 minutes. The story is compact and compelling. Your enjoyment of the film may depend on whether you appreciate the lo-fi production values. Found footage films fully embrace the gritty and unvarnished look.
At first glance, the production values feel shoddy. However, upon closer examination, the crew demonstrated great creativity in its execution. The opening establishing shots are in full 4K level clarity. The grainy quality was deliberate. Remember, Monroe “Shot” this film.
Dooba Dooba benefits from utilizing the multitude of cameras in the editing process, often switching to Monroe’s point of view in a muffled, shaky cam. Additionally, the use of exaggerated low-angle and top-down camera angles effectively heightens the tension, as it removes the point of view to positions that remove the human level context. The through-the-keyhole shot of Amna gets big style points within a film that might otherwise feel static. Hollingsworth squeezed every last drop out of this tiny budget.
Less successfully, the movie included some historical documentary footage, featuring political quotes that were difficult to integrate into the film’s context. An exception to this rule was the equation of James Monroe to Jeffrey Dahmer. How the Monroe Doctrine and serial cannibal killing are related, I’m not sure, but it made me chuckle.
Concluding Thoughts:
Hollingsworth electrified the audience with an amusing introduction to his movie at the Portland Horror Film Festival. He took the babysitting trope to new places and successfully squeezed the pressure points in the plot for maximum tension. After interviewing Hollingsworth, I found him full of clever concepts and full of potential.
I would have liked a bit more background for Ama. However, if we are to accept the idea that this is Monroe’s film, we won’t get Amna’s story. How did Amna come to know of this job? Why would she be so desperate to take this odd opportunity? The film ends with a pair of haymaker blows that left me a little numb at the finish.
This film is unrated. Likely, it would receive an R-rating for violence and intensity. A mature teenager could likely handle the content of this movie. Dooba Dooba is nearing the end of its festival run and got picked up by Dark Sky films, and will be looking for a streaming release later this year (and perhaps a few select theatrical showings.)
An Interview with Dooba Dooba director Ehrland Hollingsworth and producer Josh Harris.
I got the opportunity to interview the creative (and zany) duo of Hollingsworth and Harris, and they surprised me with an unexpected serenade! I haven’t laughed this hard on a Scariest Things Podcast before…
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