FrightFest review – Dooba Dooba
Written, directed and a lot else by Ehrland Hollingsworth, Dooba Dooba is a retro-look found footage film set in America, 2022 – which now seems an oasis of calm sandwiched by periods of screaming nightmares – where the aesthetics and attitudes of verite abuse are roughly spliced into insistent reminders of the worst aspects of US history. It features montages of presidential events and achievements in space, along with footnotes about slavery, lobotomy and Jeffrey Dahmer, which give a) some weight to what would otherwise be an exercise in senses-numbing sadism or b) are pretentious frills to excuse its relish in escalating a situation from uncomfortable to unbearable (you be the judge).
Amna (Amna Vegha) is hired by the Jeffersons – Wilson (Winston Haynes) and Taylor (Erin O’Meara) – to be babysitter for their daughter Monroe (Betsy Sligh) while they’re away at an overnight party. As the odd angles, blurry-vid academy frame visuals (and even screen-filling close-in-on-blurry-vid visuals) and blunt cuts between scenes demonstrate, the house is overequipped with security cameras. The Jeffersons – yes, it’s not a coincidence the whole family is named after Presidents – explain that sixteen-year-old Monroe is still traumatised because her brother Roosevelt was murdered in his bed some years ago and the killer was never caught. She has massive trust issues and the family (and visitors) are required to soothe her with the title chant to signify that she isn’t in danger – though viewers will fairly soon determine that Amna is more likely to be in peril than the cause of it.
When Monroe (aka ‘Mooney’) comes out of her room, she’s disturbingly frank about Amna’s musical efforts (she’s stalked the babysitter’s socials) and seesaws between trembling terror and verbal (even physical) aggression. Part of the trick of films on this pattern is the frog-boiling scenario – you have to tick off all the red flags which would make most people quit the situation, no matter the social (or financial) pressures to stay. The parents are alarming enough – we get a sense of the kind of party they’re sneaking off to – before the daughter even shows up … and when she punches Amna in the face during a game of Truth or Dare, even the most conscientious sitter would be justified in abandoning the brat to her own neuroses. But, of course, the little monster is convincingly contrite … and things don’t get really terrible until a late-film development involving a DJ who could help Amna’s career and her twin sister Ana.
Acted with conviction, Dooba Dooba is almost unbearably tense – but signposts its nature so early that there’s little suspense. We just have to sit and watch it, with occasional finger-wags to insist that there is a greater point than cruelty. It’s no fun at all, but is very well crafted at its budget level – and does have some actual content. Sligh in particular is terrific as a fresh breed of psycho.
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