BLACKBOXTV'S THE BABYSITTER (SHORT) REVIEW.

In film school, the majority of the first year of studies is dedicated to writing, filming and editing short films, easing students into the independent market first as opposed to throwing them in the deep end with mainstream Hollywood features. During research for writing a script for one of my short films, I came across the YouTube channel BlackBoxTV. The channel is filled with many suspenseful horror shorts directed by Tony E. Valenzuela, and a lot of them are really, really good.

Today saw the release of the latest short film by the channel, The Babysitter, and after watching it my immediate reaction was a wanting to share it with the readers of this blog. As I feel that horror is a completely overlooked genre in independent filmmaking and in the festival circuits (in fact, we were forbidden from writing horror films in our first year of university), when I find one I think is brilliant, I am overwhelmed with excitement at the fact that despite the lack of profit from short films in general, and horror-genre shorts in particular, they are still being made because of a love for cinema and for the act of scaring.

The film's cinematography is brilliant. Typical horror-genre techniques are used professionally in the film, following the character around a house, off-screen noise, off-screen space, and it all adds up into creating an extremely suspenseful atmosphere. The film is shown from the perspective of the babysitter, played by Youtube Megan Camarena, perhaps as a lot of YouTube demographics show young girls making up the majority of views, therefore making the story more real for them, or perhaps just to show how sadistic the actions that take place are from an outsiders viewpoint.

The film shows a child becoming obsessed with a video. Seemingly taking inspiration from the likes of The Ring and Spy Kids (Floop is a mad man, help us, save us), the video deals with the wider theme of technologies impact on the youth. The young boy in this video, six years old, is brainwashed by the video, witnessing the murder of his babysitter and mother without batting an eyelid. The real horror that is being presented is that of the lack of control parents are having on the information and content their children witness on the internet. The combination of a lack of parental guidance and the wrong video being watched by a child is catastrophic in this case.

Acting out the role of the extremely creepy 'host' of this video the child is watching is YouTube sensation Joey Graceffa, showing his talent in a weird yet wonderful role that diverges from his usual music videos and short internet skits.

As with all horror films, even short ones that are simply being uploaded to YouTube, the editing is key. In this film, CGI is used to create a portal that is seemingly sucking the child's mind into the video he is watching. Also used on a demonic teddy to make the eyes larger (possibly referencing the extremely successful The Shining), the combination of the editing and beautiful camerawork makes the film a joy to watch and at only seven minutes long, not a time consuming one.

With sites such as YouTube and Vimeo emerging and having billions of users, film festivals are no longer the only place to look for independent and brilliant new cinema. BlackBoxTV is just one of many growing channels on YouTube that present festival-standard shorts for free, and for that, I respect the people behind it a lot. 

For now, we'll have to just wait and see if internet shorts become as successful as they have the potential to become, and also for BlackBoxTV to announce their debut feature film. I will be first in line for a ticket on that day.