The Caretaker (dir. Luke Tedder)

By: Adam Freed

Lockwood Academy is an elite private school nestled in an idyllic wooded expanse along the English coast.  The preparatory academy is run by the Aberdeen family, a generationally aristocratic clan representing Britain's upper crust.  An iron-grey cloud hovers above both Lockwood and the Aberdeens, offering a veil of secrecy and cover for the untold misdeeds that have taken place on the grounds for generations.  Like a venus flytrap, the prestigious academy lures employees, most of whom come from positions of desperation, to work its halls and grounds, favoring the controllable nature of the less fortunate members of society.  It is under these circumstances that the recently unhoused Eddie Hartwood should come to the gates of Lockwood to assume the titular role in writer and Director Luke Tedder’s dark thriller, The Caretaker.

Eddie is the product of a deeply troubled childhood, one that manifests itself in the film’s opening scene in which the mute adult attempts to meet the needs of his ailing and sinister mother.  Luke Tedder frames Eddie in an empathetic light, making clear that the pressures of hereditary obligation have converted the sole Hartwood son into an emotional punching bag for his decrepit and venomous mother.  Once the course of her illness frees Eddie of his servitude, the realities of life without shelter take hold.  While the prestigious halls of Lockwood promise a reprieve from this temporary ailment, Eddie finds himself in the midst of a dark chaos he could’ve never imagined.  At the center of The Caretaker are a pair of performances, equal in their impact, yet quite opposite in their approach. Eddie is captured with a layered delicacy within the performance of Ben Probert (Precognition, Prime Cut), who instills in his protagonist a somber and flinching apprehension, a product of years of abuse without the sanctity of a verbal outlet.  Opposite Probert’s performance is that of Mackenzie Larsen (Wake Up, Vacancy), who as Marie, a member of the school’s cleaning staff, quickly sparks a kinship with Eddie as both employees find themselves under the same oppressive Aberdeen thumb.  While Eddie and the American Marie make an unlikely duo, their bond represents a highlight in Tedder’s methodically paced thriller.

To its credit, The Caretaker manufactures multiple moments of genuine dread, as Eddie experiences the horrors of Lockwood Academy.  Dark hallways and mysterious spectral appearances inject Tedder’s thriller with momentary boosts of well-earned adrenaline, yet cannot completely resuscitate a cautious pacing that has trouble justifying the length of its runtime.  With each newly introduced conflict that befall Eddie and Marie, The Caretaker careens further off course in what otherwise may have been a tightly constructed and presented thriller.  All is not lost however in a third act that delivers upon the film’s overbuilt tension, a payoff that satisfies without completely justifying the circuitous route it takes to reach resolution.  Above all else, Luke Tedder has proven his gift for capturing the ominous visual framings of the natural and supernatural worlds within his psychological thriller. 

Target Score 6.5/10 - Set against the ominous backdrop of England's Lockwood Academy, The Caretaker is a modern thriller about the scars left by sins of the past.  Director Luke Tedder crafts a visually intriguing story about guilt, shame and an oppressive history of abuse.