[The Caretaker]
Plot:Involves a group of teenage boys out to give their girlfriends a good scare on Halloween. To do so...they head to an abandoned house in a grapefruit orchard to set up some pranks and gags. Unaware that "The Caretaker" lurks in the shadows.

Cast:Judd Nelson, Jennifer Tilly, Kira Verrastro, James Immekus, Jennifer Freeman, Andrew St. John, Diego J. Torres, Victoria Vande Vegte, Jonathan Breck, Lola Davidson, Will Stiles, René Ashton, Shawn Andrews.

My Thoughts:Predictable, cliche, but worth seeing once?

Review:The slasher subgenre mostly suffers because of the indie horror scene of late. A scene which once produced some intriguing new-age slashers, has now relegated itself to more and more cautionary tales of teens going to places where they shouldn't, and then getting high, scaring each other, and having relations at said location. Then a wacko shows up, kills them all, except one girl who can run really fast.

She's the one who manages to escape, but then at the end, we find out he, she, or it has followed her home and she's a goner too. Cue sequel...."yawn". "The Caretaker" is yet another exercise in said subgenre. The film follows a group of kids who get all dressed up to go to the school dance. But for some reason, decide it'd be a better idea to visit the local orchard to scare their respective dates.

How? Well the orchard has a dark past, a past which involved a psychotically jealous man who killed his wife there, and then disappeared. So if you're thinking the man returns home, just at the same time that the kids show up at the orchard to "mess around", then you win the gold star! Hence, this films predictablity. We already know what's gonna happen even before it does. Especially because while the kids are en route to the orchard, some other characters who are there for various reasons, end up getting sliced and diced themselves.

So while we don't know early on who the killer is, we do indeed know there is a killer. The films killer isn't really anything or anyone special. He's the usual B-grade slasher movie type. He waits until his victim is in a dark place, and unaware. Then he shanks them, they die, and he moves on to the next person. He's definitely a classic slasher villain. But there's nothing scary about the guy. He wears a big hat, and the writers decide to save his ultimate appearance for the films final 20 minutes.

Yes, this is one of those slasher movies, where we're presented annoying teens, and pretty much have to watch them become increasingly annoying for 70 minutes. Before the killer finally decides to make an appearance and do the job himself. Apparently, at some point, he was tired of the little punks trapsing around his property, and making sex jokes as well. As was I, but there's one thing us genre fans never get tired of......Jennifer Tilly! Who makes an appearance in this film as a MILF who is quite loose with well, everything.

Of course her characters purpose is three things, A. give the movie a hot older female character, B. give the viewer another option for who the killer is, and C. give the viewer a suspicion that she's aiding or abetting the killer. Or maybe it's secret option D......all of the above? At any rate, she doesn't show up enough times to make this movie any good. Her small miniscule moments of screen time make the movie enjoyable for those moments, and those moments only.

But when JT isn't around, the film falls back into annoying teen slasher mode. And that's a problem. The deaths aren't great, as I stated above, just a bunch of stabbings in the dark, hardly any bloody and super-gruesome scenes to speak of, and the films ending is just so obnoxious and predictable that you shake your head in shame that someone actually thought the end twist was a genius idea. However, this film did have a certain charm to it. And that was because it had the look of an 80's slasher movie, and kind of felt like one also.

One of those cheesy 80's slashers you'd catch on CINEMAX late on night after coming in from a club or a bar. But beyond the 80's slasher charm, as a scary movie, as a horror movie..."The Caretaker" is not one of those indie gems. It doesn't bring an "A" game on any level, and bores you most of the time because it takes too long to do away with the super-obnoxious teenagers. Slasher junkies will like it simply because it's a slasher movie. But more savvy horror fans will dismiss this film as dismissable.

Positives:Jennifer Tilly, the 80's slasher vibe the movie carried with it throughout.

Negatives:Annoying characters, lousy kills, a lame killer, and a very lame ending.

Overall:One and a half stars out of four.





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