Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Ehrland Hollingsworth
Starring: Betsy Sligh, Amna Vegha, Erin O'Meara, Winston Haynes, Billy Hulsey
In the cinematic universe is there an occupation more fraught with danger than that of a babysitter? We all know that the working title for Halloween was "The Babysitter Murders," that babysitters are the subject of sibylline conspiracy in Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, and that the call is forever coming from inside the house (shout out to Elizabeth Shue who at least seemed to escape unscathed and have the world's most amazing poster - RIP Drew Struzan - in Adventures in Babysitting, a film co-produced by apparent childminder enthusiast Debra Hill...). In Ehrland Hollingsworth's idiosyncratic indie Dooba Dooba, the implacable lyricism of the title a straight up indicator of the film's pleasingly stubborn peculiarity, the trope is deployed once again, via an ambitious found footage movie wherein claustrophobic horror, race relations and the American industrial/military complex are examined within the kitschy confines of a suburban American household.
You have to give it to Hollingsworth: this is a film fizzing with ideas and energy. We cold open with video footage of the older Bush president being inaugurated to attendant Hail to the Chief brassery, before cutting to ominous static interior and exterior shots of a house, and then, after a brutal enigma code, a mock credits sequence montages home video footage of a family, vintage electric chair executions and boxing matches, along with quotes from presidents expressing imperial power. The intertitle reads, "A final project presented by Monroe Jefferson to the adjudicators, in partial fulfilment for a degree with honors of high school equivealiancy (sic)": it's Adam Curtis by way of V/H/S, a genre contextualising which juxtaposes authority and subjugation.
It's heady, and so at least we have Amna (Amna Vegha) as our equally bewildered touchstone. We see her first through the doorcam of the house where she is to babysit teen weirdo Monroe (Betsy Sligh) and then through the various CCTV cameras inside the abode. The family clearly isn't normal, an axiom compounded by the middle-aged parents' (Erin O'Meara, Winston Haynes) excruciating attempts to appear so. They breezily explain that Monroe's brother was murdered to death in the bedroom he shared with the toddler Monroe, hence the hyper security, before the dad makes a massive deal stumbling over Amna's appellation – "it's these ethnic names" - and then attempts to give her a dollar as recompense – "think of it as reparations." Red flag, much? (I also loved Mum's immaculate reader's wives get up: platinum wig, pearl necklace, black dress-cum-negligee). Weirdness is generated not only by the awkward dialogue but the naturalistic performances, and the flattening effect of the supposed security cameras.
And then we meet Monroe. Shift across Bad Ronald, there's a new socially awkward adolescent sociopath in small town suburbia. Filming Amna from her own button cam (the not-quite-eyeline perspective in keeping with Dooba Dooba's queasy off-kilter mien), she proceeds to fuck with Amna, who has been duly primed to address Monroe with care. The film's title refers to the noise the doomed babysitter needs to make before approaching her 16-year-old (!) charge as a reassurance that she is not a threat (I Work With Young People, and here's a pro-tip: when a parent says how sensitive their child is, read precious and spoilt). What begins with impertinent questions revealing that Monroe has been cyber stalking Amna (in a life imitating art diversion, during research I came across Vegha's Insta, and she seems very nice: anyone who loves animals that much is alright by me), graduates to a game of truth or dare (a recreation which never ends well), before descending into perhaps some of the more gruelling horror sequences of the year (after last week's Dolly it has been quite the month). As the dread, which is palpable throughout, increases, cheerful facts about serial killers and presidents invade the screen like broadcast signal intrusions.
It would be impertinent to reveal Dooba Dooba's Dark secrets, but, be assured/warned, it goes there. Is it too much to reveal that the garden shed cut to in ominous exteriors houses a chained child captive (who SPOILER may or may not be the murdered brother, if, indeed, he ever did exist SPOILER ENDS), that the parents return early with their outré appetites unsated..? How you receive Dooba Dooba will depend upon your tolerance for its glitchy and ugly blend of film stocks and angles. I'm an absolute sucker for this sort of thing, both the patchwork hauntology and the found footage textures: here the latter objectifies the action, as if we are studying rather than watching, and the former at least prompts consideration via apposition. Ultimately, Dooba Dooba's Mylar plastic ribbons are not quite robust enough to endure the lofty implications of its narrative, and, for this viewer, whatever apparent message the film attempts to relay is obfuscated. With the film's non-linear rewinds, late-stage doubling, and abrupt tonal shifts, Dooba Dooba collapses into something of a mess by the end of its brief running time, but, with its imperial creepiness and ambition, a hot mess for all that.
