A babysitter has a strange night in the unique and strange found footage Dooba Dooba, from writer-director Ehrland Hollingsworth, presented through Screamfest LA 2025.
A babysitter having an unusual night in a horror movie? Never heard of it! I kid, obviously. Despite my joke, Dooba Dooba is a different take on the horror trope. No, Ehrland Hollingsworth’s Dooba Dooba isn’t Halloween or Night of the Reaper. Amna isn’t stalked by a masked killer out to get her. Instead, she’s trying to connect with eleventh grader Monroe. Although on the spectrum, which is part of it, Monroe is dealing with PTSD from her brother’s death, stabbed to death next to her in her room, putting her on a constant edge.
It’s clear something is right from the start. Presented as a high school equivalency project by Monroe, it even has in-camera edits with a bad font and spelling errors at the start, before revealing the “director”. I was concerned. You got me, real writer-director Erhalnd Hollingsworth! It immediately sets an “Amna is not in control” aspect, and neither are you, audience. It pulls the audience into “there’s some antics going on” for the babysitter and the viewer. In addition, the viewer sees the film in a found footage sort of way, from CCTV cameras planted throughout the home, creating a distressing edge of “I shouldn’t be seeing this.” I appreciate when a film uses the language of presentation to deepen its effect, as Dooba Doobda does with increasing frequency.
Figuring out the hows of the “not right” is the fun. It’s filmed all through CCTV cameras placed around the home, sliding through the odd angles. The presentation is unnerving, and although everyone is aware of the CCTVs (or most of them…). There’s a sort of commentary on manners and being pushed to breaking, a la Speak No Evil. The title comes from a phrase Amna has to repeat ad nauseam to make Monroe comfortable. There are escalating dares. Shots another person around. What are parents really up to? We wonder if Amna’s in danger, just off from Monroe’s oddity (to which Betsy Sligh plays at just the right pitch), or perhaps being messed with (Amna Vegha also plays the right level of “I’m trying to be nice and work through this, but dammit, I’m worried as all hell” the two women play off one another very well). I won’t give the movie’s surprises, of which there are many, but other multimedia aspects build the “high school” video in weird ways. I’ll just say: PowerPoint. It’s so odd, it’s funny and off-putting. It’s the sort of reality-breaking I dig (like Buffet Infinity, also on the festival circuit).
I was reminded of Skinamarink. Not so much in the action (or in Skinamarink’s lack of – but I’ll admit I liked that film a great deal), but in the uncomfortable nature of the angles, the shots, and how it holds. It sits, and we don’t know where to look. A flip of the angel questions if something horrific or mundane, or somehow both, awaits. The hum of the analog footage creates an uneasy soundtrack, akin to the continuing hum of a generator in Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I love ambient noise being used to create dread.
I enjoyed Dooba Dooba, although I didn’t fully connect. As it came to a close, I felt there was something that didn’t quite land, although I can’t put my finger on it. Don’t take that slight personal wrinkle affront. I highly appreciated Dooba Dooba. It’s enough that the concept can slide through some rougher bits. I will always give points for going somewhere else, approaching filmmaking in a new manner, especially if they are deliciously bizarre. The special aspects of presentation make Dooba Dooba engaging.
The weirdness of everyone involved pulls in. For fans of movies that take risks and present everything off-kilter, Dooba Dooba will work wonders.
Dooba Dooba is presented through Screamfest LA, running October 7th through 16th, 2025.