Now available on DVD
Cast:
Kira Verrastro as Ella
James Immekus as Snail
Jennifer Freeman as Sonya
Andrew St. John as Topher
Diego J. Torres as Ricky
Victoria Vande Vegte as Chloe
Jennifer Tilly as Miss Perry
Judd Nelson as Ella’s Dad
Jonathan Breck as The Limo Driver
Directed by Bryce Olson
Review:
The recipe for a slasher film is simple: a handful of good-looking teenagers, one slow-moving killer, at least two boob shots, a horror veteran cameo, and blood. Lots of blood. The Caretaker delivers most of these, but evidently missed the memo about blood. A decent cast and campy sense of humor combat the significant lack of gore and a very weak ending.
It’s Halloween night and, coincidentally, the night of the Homecoming Dance. Three horny high-school guys take their dates to an abandoned house in a grapefruit orchard hoping to get some. They tell the girls the legend of The Caretaker, an orchard worker who went insane and kept his wife prisoner in this very house before ultimately killing her. Unbeknownst to them, the Caretaker is real and has come home to get some, too. At first, the teens assume they are being stalked by a prankster they hired to scare the girls, but when corpses start turning up, they realize the urban legend is true. Disguised in a straw hat and heavy facial veil, the Caretaker picks off the kiddies one-by-one with a jagged fruit picker.
The lead cast is comprised of relative unknowns, who are mildly entertaining to watch and manage to avoid being complete stereotypes. That is a pretty sizable accomplishment for a low-budget, teen-marketed slasher. Chewing scenery all over this movie is Jennifer Tilly, who plays a slutty teacher determined to get famous by sleeping with a student. The B-movie starlet brings a much-appreciated sense of campiness to the film. Another name you might recognize here is Jonathan Breck (best known as The Creeper from Jeepers Creepers). He has a small but amusing role as the teenagers’ creepy limo driver. And finally, we have Judd Nelson making a tiny cameo as an overprotective father. One excessively mushy scene with his daughter reminded me of that classic Breakfast Club scene: “Hon, isn’t our son swell?” “Yes dear, isn’t life swell?”
The most frustrating aspect of The Caretaker is the complete lack of gore. Every time the killer attacks someone, the camera cuts away. In one scene, he literally knocks a victim down, and then drags him off-screen to be killed for no apparent reason. In another scene, the filmmakers build up to an inevitable self-mutilation scene that does not happen. It would seem that every time we are about to see the good stuff, the movie cuts away. How this film acquired an R-rating is a mystery to me.
A few creative kills would have been nice, too. With a weapon as a unique as a fruit picker, The Caretaker totally could have plucked someone’s heart out of their chest like a grapefruit. Instead, he repeatedly stabs or – even more aggravating – scratches them. Furthermore, each victim inexplicably falls and dies instantly from their deep scratch. Nobody would realistically die that fast! The only person who delivers a proper death scene is Tilly – she is a seasoned horror actress, after all. Not one victim attempts to put up a fight. At one point, the kids each pick up weapons, and then proceed to drop them all. What a waste.
The other disappointing aspect of the film is how predictable the killer’s identity is. Within the first fifteen or twenty minutes, it becomes very obvious. The filmmakers’ attempts at creating red herrings completely fail. They had a great opportunity to pull the rug out at the end (for a second, I really thought they might), but alas, they went with the obvious. It does not help matters that Tilly’s character completely gives it away ten minutes too soon. To the film’s credit, I like how the killer’s identity is revealed to one character (hint: earring). It may be the smartest thing in the whole script. If only it weren’t so obvious to the audience. The filmmakers so thinly veiled the killer’s identity that I even wonder if they actually intended it that way.
While there is no good excuse for a weak script, perhaps the lack of blood is due to the film’s low-budget. Evidently, the independent financier had strict guidelines regarding the movie’s graphic content. If you are looking for nudity, you may be disappointed. Only one girl gets topless, but it is totally worth it to see the “Boob-o-Lantern.” For a slasher film marketed to teenagers, The Caretaker is not all bad. It has good cameos, decent leads, and a nice back story for its killer. Perhaps a mediocre “PG-13 horror” is still better than a bad R-rated one.
