Friday Night Frights: The Caretaker DVD Review

A trio of teens decide to skip the Halloween dance and instead pick up their dates and head out to the caretaker’s abandoned house in the middle of a large orchard. With a creepy limo driver that probably isn’t allowed within 200 feet of their school, the six set off for a night of fun, unaware that the murderous caretaker still roams the orchards with his deadly fruitpicker  er, weapon.

Ok, had to change the last line as it just sounded a bit silly. Anyway, The Caretaker apparently suffered from severe jealousy and paranoia to the point that he kept his beautiful wife shackles in their cottage to ensure that she remain faithful and that no one would try to take her from him.

The plot is nothing new and features a twist ending that is used in some form every year it seems. It struck me as kind of funny that when the boys are telling the girls the legend of the Caretaker they make it seem as if it happened a long time ago, although based on the timeline, we are really looking at the early 90′s as when the first killings would have happened. The director Bryce Olson checks off nudity on the to do list early, as a random couple come to the cottage to set it up for the miniparty and are instantly dispatched after a very creative halloween decoration involving flashlighs and well, breasts is displayed nicely. Once the early killing (which in my mind seemed to violate the timeline of other events in the film) is finished, the movie slows down greatly, with no nudity and little gore for the rest of the runtime.

When you mention the actors in Caretaker, the two big names to talk about are logically Judd Nelson and Meg Tilly. Now Judd Nelson’s performance is actually slightly longer than a cameo, as he is in literally 2 scenes in the movie, so there is not much to discuss. So let’s jump to talented voice actor and Chucky’s girlfriend Tiffany, Jennifer Tilly….In The Caretaker Jennifer is Miss Perry, a slightly (ok, that’s an understatement) unbalanced high school teacher who wants to be a celebrity. Her foolproof plan is to mess around with a high school student and leak the photos to gain notoriety and a movie of the week. Jennifer is fine in this part, and her distinctive voice and well endowed body lend themselves well to the role. The rest of the cast are relegated to sterotypical high school roles, jock, nerdy guy, party guy and their female counterparts. None of these performances stand out, however none are glaringly bad or detract from the film either.

I am unable to review the special features for this release as none were included in my review copy, however according to the press release, other than Spanish subtitles none are included.

The Caretaker is a very cookie cutter slasher film in most aspects and ends with a twist that no one who has seen a few horror flicks will not immediately spot. The evil caretaker’s weapon, a modified fruit picker, has some potential for good gore moments. Unfortunately the blood trickles instead of flows for this release so that potential is never fully realized. I would have to recommend passing on The Caretaker because there is just nothing unique about it.

The Caretaker is available on DVD starting on February 23, 2010, courtesy of MTI Video.