Now this is what I’m talking about. Beau Yotty is hard at work developing his ‘Don the Slayer Series,’ a short film saga that features a demon killing, gum chewing, gun toting, defender of the living who hunts early cinematic ghouls and purely original monsters. The first installment in the series, Midnight Workout, was a little rough around the edges – to say the least. Luckily, Yotty came back stronger than ever with Call the Babysitter, and it remedied all the major bumps and bruises of his previous shorts. In Call the Babysitter, inspired by the 80’s subgenre of horror, a young woman takes on a last minute babysitting job, and looks over a girl who’s more into her phone than communicating with another soul. Unfortunately, her peaceful evening spent on social media is ruined when a demon returns from the grave and attacks the first house he sees, and now it’s up to Don the Slayer to save them from the powerful, evil beast. Action and suspense await viewers on the mini-screen in episode two of ‘Don the Slayer.’
Call the Babysitter is written and directed by Beau Yotty. It was produced by Sandra Mateu and features cinematography from Nathan Yotty. Beau Yotty, Tessa Gardenier, Bill Wetherill, Kinzie Yotty and Cat Roberts star in this eight minute short film adventure in the Don the Slayer series. At first I was little apprehensive that this was going to be a good one because it opened with the same style as Midnight Workout, which was a lot of establishing shots and sequences of stalking, but otherwise very little content. It was great that it opened with the same backing musical score as the last short because viewers and fans of the series will start to recognize that as the official Don the Slayer theme. Luckily, Beau Yotty switched things up and delivered a fun, frightening short film that was tremendously more successful than its predecessor. Call the Babysitter has a ton of action and expert fight choreography, it’s got character and demon design that helps to establish the world in Yotty’s mind, and it actually contains old school horror instead of focusing solely on suspense and stalking. Great job, team!
The added details and higher production values, by department, greatly improved the overall quality of this short film. It was leaps and bounds better than Midnight Workout. I love that characters were introduced that helped to push the story along. I loved that we actually got to hear dialogue this time around, and most importantly – we finally get to hear Don’s voice, which is super important considering he’s the lead character in each installment. It helps to make him real, and his personality and attitude was missing from the last entry. My only critique is that the audio could still use a lot of work. It’s still several pegs below the caliber of every other department. Once that’s improved, this series is going to be a beast… or a beast killer! I hope Beau keeps taking risks, keeps making mistakes, and keeps getting better. He strikes gold, to whatever extent, with each of his short films, and sooner or later he’s bound to get a perfect picture. Until then, I’ll be watching!
Final Score: 7.25 out of 10.
