Benutzerrezensionen

Sad too. Because I was really enjoying the rabbit stuff. And the harness thing. And the Memento-style whodunit aspect. But it seemed to reveal all its tricks way too early and the filmmakers didn't know what to do with the nifty elements they created, leaving a muddled, dragging and repetitive second half.

I wish it worked better.

Will you go to this sketchy and clearly dangerous place and babysit a weirdo child? Nope - FIN

A haunted house horror on Shudder. This movie was less than an hour and a half, but man it was slow and boring for the first hour and 10 minutes. It's atmospheric, but not as creepy as it intended to. I'll admit, the usage of background noise was quite effective in some scenes. Then, the horror really become significant at the end. The eyes were used to great extent that kept me on the edge.

My biggest problem was that this movie felt like testing horror and not about making a coherent story. Lots of things felt random and pointless.

Overall, the editing for horror was pretty good, but the story was nonsense. 5/10.

This movie is going to lose a lot of people in the first 30-40 minutes unfortunately. In the modern world of cinema where audience attention spans are at an all-time low, people just aren't going to stay focused on a movie with this slow of a start. If there was an opening scene that hinted at things to come, maybe. But there really is nothing promised in that opening. Some people love the slow-burn, no doubt about it, and those people are going to have a great time with this one. But not the majority I fear.

After that slow start things do start to pick up a bit and an interesting set-up finally arises. I was ready for this. But then no sooner has this set-up presented itself, before it falls back into the recesses of nothingness for another period. This was a little frustrating and by this point in the movie I really wasn't having a good time. So how did I come to a score as high as 6/10 you're probably wondering?

The ending to this movie was very interesting. It still struggled mightily with pacing issues, however there is one scene near the end that was as well done of a horror scene as I have seen in a while. Rarely does anything potentially supernatural give me the slightest bit of interest these days, but this had me on the edge of my seat. A very impressive scene.

I also liked that the film was in no way relying on jump-scares. For my memory there isn't a single one throughout the film. All the horror is done through slow reveals, tension building and creepy imagery.

It's important to remember this is a debut effort from Damian Mc Carthy (interesting name). He'll learn a lot from the feedback he gets on this film and with the small showings of excellence that this film has he could put out something truly special one day. Watch this space.

First off I relish watching any Irish horror film being from Dublin and a big horror buff I'm always on the look out for a great Irish horror film and there have been at least a couple. I really wanted to love this film after seeing the great trailer and poster. Top marks for the trailer and poster. This film had my full and undivided attention up to the first hour passing and unfortunately it really began to lose me thereafter. I really wondered why that was. I think the story is gaining momentum for the first hour, it's really well shot, it sounds great and the story is original but when it boils down to it the characters in the film were quite difficult to really relate to and emphathize with. I didn't care what happened to the main character in the latter moments of the film and the suspense had vanished. 'Caveat' feels like a great idea for a short film that was then used for a feature film instead. It feels very long and a bit repetitive after a short period of time. I wasn't interested in any of the characters and I think that's the film's downside. There wasn't any bad acting or anything like that I just didn't feel anything for any of those characters. Maybe such a small cast also added to my feelings of disinterest. The ending in particular felt very weak, there was no pay off at the end at all. Great photography, great sound design but uninteresting characters, a muddled narrative, very light on any horror of any kind. I really wanted to love it but the last half an hour lost me completely. There is certainly real talent behind this film in particular behind the lense but it won't be a rewatch for me. 5/10

If I would collect movie props that drumming rabbit toy would be the first thing I would buy. I'm not sure, no in fact I'm 100% sure, that thing wouldn't be allowed in the house by my wife. It was creepy and fun to watch. The movie has a good suspense level, and some mystery that keeps you interested. I thought Jonathan French was very convincing in his role, pretty good acting of him. The horror is there but it's mild, it's all more about the suspense and mystery. Overal the story is fine but could have been better. It's good enough for a one time viewing though.

Considering this is the director's first outting, this film is pretty remarkable. On just a shoe-string budget, the film manages some great cinematography, set design, performances, and a few genuine chills. Unfortunately, where the movie falters is in the writing. The plot has far too many holes, and the character's make constant, border-line incomprehensible decisions. If you can turn off your critical thinking for a majority of the film, and just appreciate it for it's atmospheric tension, you'll find there are some really promising and enjoyable moments/ideas strewn throughout.

Considering how over-run the horror genre is with terrible cash grabs, it's always exciting to see a director who is clearly talented and has their own unique voice and vision; even if the end result is a bit messy. Can't wait to see what the director does next!

If you can overlook the implausibility of the premise and don't question the logic of the individual characters, Caveat is a successful chamber drama with a clear focus on atmosphere.

The pacing is a bit bumpy in between and the film's stance on the paranormal is not entirely clear, but I'm happy to overlook that because I found the nightmarish pull of the story very fascinating.

Especially in a scene towards the end I really got goosebumps, which (unfortunately) is really rare for me.

I thought this movie was solid but slow. I don't mind a slow movie, this one got particularly slow towards the middle so if you don't have patience it's not for you. I wish there was a little more meat to the plot but it really was good as is. I think if they had done just a bit more beefing of the plot and character development it would have improved vastly. Super atmospheric and I thought the main actor did a great job. It was something they should be proud of for sure. Would recommend.

This was a movie that I heard about thanks to some podcasters that I respect. They seemed to enjoyed this, so I was intrigued to check it out. It makes it even easier that it available on Shudder. Now I did read the synopsis before watching it, just to see if it would work as a Featured Review for my Odyssey through the Ones on Journey with a Cinephile: A Horror Movie Podcast. That synopsis is a lone drifter suffering from partial memory loss accepts a job to look after a psychologically troubled woman in an abandoned house on an isolated island.

For this movie, we start getting to meet Olga (Lelia Sykes). She walks into a room with a toy rabbit. She keeps presenting it to different parts of the room and it comes to life, playing its drum. When I mean come to life, it is a toy that I'm assuming should be wound or have batteries. It leads her down the stairs and to a small section of wall that is different. This looks to have been an opening that is fixed with drywall. She presents the rabbit and it plays its drum again. She then cuts a hole in the wall and looks in.

There is a good transition here to Moe Barret (Ben Caplan). He is speaking with Isaac (Jonathan French). He asks how long he will be staying and offers a job. It seems simple. He must watch his troubled niece. He reveals she has psychological issues, but he will pay him $200 a day. Isaac is leery about taking on this job. He does agree though.

Isaac becomes uneasy when he learns that the house is on an island. He did know that her father killed himself and her mother disappeared. Barret convinces him that it will okay so they take the boat to the house. Things get even darker when they arrive. The house is rundown. I'm surprised it has electricity. The worst part though is that Olga has issues with sleeping. Apparently, her grandmother would sleepwalk, so she created a harness that is connected to a chain in the basement. For Olga to not worry about Isaac entering her room, he has to put this on. He refuses, but Barret can be convincing.

Barret leaves and Isaac tries to find ways to pass the time. He tests to see how far he can go while wearing this harness and it isn't much. Weird things happen around him, which makes this already uneasy feeling he has worse. The chain is pulled on, but there is no one around. Lights turn off by themselves and there is haunting painting in the room he is staying. To make it even worse, when Olga she becomes too excited goes into a catatonic state and covers her eyes.

Things aren't as they seem though. This might not actually be Isaac's first time on the island. As time goes on and he starts to recover his memories, he makes some grisly discoveries within the house. Not everyone is as they seem either.

That is where I want to leave my recap. What I find interesting here is that we don't have the most complex story, but it is quite engaging. From the beginning, we are given limited information and things are revealed as we go. It seems that from the start, Barret knows who Isaac is, but since the latter has memory issues, he isn't sure how. He even makes a statement that it doesn't seem like someone he would be friends with. The memory issue gets revealed to the cause as the movie goes on and I liked that. Since Isaac is unsure of what is fully going on, we aren't sure either.

Before I get too much more into the characters themselves, I want to talk about the setting. Isaac is leery taking on this job, but it keeps getting worse as we go. The house is on an island, so it is isolated. It isn't in good shape either. That adds a creepy element to it. There is another part where a family foxes live on the island and Barret tells Isaac how their cries sound like a teenage girl screaming. To describe it like that might be on point, but how he words it makes it unnerving. The power ends up going out. It is dark and dreary even with the power on. The basement is where things also take place and that adds to the atmosphere this movie has.

With that taken care of, I'll go the acting. What I find interesting to start is our character of Barret. He enlists the aid of this guy he barely knows to look after his niece. Caplan does a solid job of being someone who is unreliable. Offering the position is only the beginning of this. The more that Isaac learns during his time on the island and as his memory comes back, the more we realize that Barret might be playing him as well as spinning half-truths.

French is also good as Isaac. He asks the right questions and we that every time he is faced with a decision, he makes the right choice. The problem is that he is pressured which causes him to change his mind. In the beginning though, the job sounds weird, but the money is good. The more he learns, the more he realizes that is a bad idea. His memory loss at first felt convenient, but as it goes on, it makes sense. He doesn't know who he can trust. As I said, I like that we don't know things until he does.

Then finally I want to go into the character of Olga. We know what Barret says about her. She is right there in the beginning, but we don't get to know her until probably 25-30 minutes into this movie. She is sitting in her catatonic state, which is creepy. She seems to be a similar situation as Isaac of not knowing who to trust, her uncle or this man who is here to 'look' after her. I thought Sykes performance was good to along with her co-stars.

With that out of the way, I think next should be the effects, cinematography and the soundtrack. I am combining this as they all contribute to the atmosphere with is the best part of the movie. Since the setting is so good, I like how it is lit. The cinematography helps to bring this location to life. There are also some creepy things done with the framing that was effective for me. They don't have a lot in the way of effects, but what we get is practical. There is another character that scary looking and made me uncomfortable. The soundtrack and design were good as well. The movie does lean a bit into the music getting louder as scares are getting close. It doesn't hurt the movie, but I also think this is better than that. All these elements combine for an effective outcome.

So then in conclusion here, what this movie does best is the atmosphere. We are combining the setting with the soundtrack and how it is shot really help to build this. Coupling this with the story that might be light, but how it is presented works. The acting fits for exactly what a movie like this needs and I liked it. What we are getting here is simple, but effective and it made me uncomfortable which is what I'm looking for. I'd say that this is a good movie. One I can't recommend to everyone, but if you like a simple, atmospheric movie, then I'd give this a go.

This is the story of Isaac , who is enlisted by a shady stranger Barrett , to look after his psychologically disturbed niece Olga in a decrepit house on a deserted rural island following her father's recent suicide. The question is - has he been there before?

Not being a horror movie fan , I have to give writer and director Damian Mc Carthy credit for what it a entertainingly creepy movie.

The setting is the star of this show . The house on an island with a chain coming from the cellar. The peeling wallpaper and secret passageways. Why anyone would would agree to stay there , especially if they had been there before , Is beyond me but that's horror films for you .

The viewer is left with lots of questions.

What is the rabbit all about ?

What was the accident?

Is Mother dead?

87 minutes is a good running time for a horror film as the cliches don't outstay their welcome.

A decent first time attempt from a debut director.

Not a masterpiece but not a bad horror either. Story is pretty straightforward and it gets a bit stale but it delivers what it intended to from the beginning.

Colors and overall cinematography are very good as well as the tempo of the movie. It is a slow burn with quite a bit of little creepy moments. Best way I could describe it is "an eerie movie about consequences".

Nothing extraordinary happens so it's not really memorable but it does just enough to pass the mark as a decent horror flick to watch when bored or doing some horror challenge.

The ending didn't surprise me at all, again, it was pretty direct and straightforward, I wish they explored things instead but that never happened.

5/10.

I saw another review that rated this a 1 with the recommendation to watch the 3rd Conjuring instead because it's a 10. Simply put, if you're the type of person that thinks Conjuring 3 is a 10, you will not like this.

This film is not perfect but any means, my phone held most of my attention the first 30 minutes or so, but it eventually grabbed my full focus and I even went back after it ended and rewatched the beginning just to see what I missed.

You can read other (positive) reviews for more details. I'll just say if you liked The Witch you'll probably like this. If you didn't like it, chances are you won't like this either, but I will say this creeped me out far more than the Witch did, so there's a chance.

Damian Mccarthy will be a name I watch for in the future for sure.

This film is a descent into madness and horror as it unravels a mystery surrounding a decades old murder. Things don't add up starting immediately from the very first scene in the film. Something scary is happening but you just can't figure out what it is. That's what you feel like through the entire movie. Something unravels in the mystery that is the main plot and it connects to another mystery.

This film is terrifying on so many levels. I won't give away any spoilers but one thing is certain and that is, is that murder is afoot.

7/10. Worth the watch, but you better not watch this one alone in the dark!

From the people who brought you Babadook once again they executed a great suspenseful psychological horror movie... the fact that they advertised this using that fact (brought to you by the makers of Babadook) was by all means what I used to measure this movie so I came in expecting that psychological twist ... I'm a real horror fan so in this day and age it takes alot to keep me interested and it really doesn't have to be "new" or "never before done" as long as it keeps me in suspense along with some interesting scares I'm happy... now I'll agree the ending could've been much better but altogether I liked and enjoyed it... real horror fans will also... it's no Babadook but it's deff his 2nd cousin from his moms side...

Saw this at the Imagine filmfestival, usually in Amsterdam but now 100% online. An interesting movie as far as visuals and sound is concerned. It kept me very tense for the full first hour. After that, alas, the logic failed on me. I could not care less what the protagonists did and said, and who would live or die in the end. Apart from that, the dialog was not fully understandable (due to the Irish language??), which could have made me miss some clues. The final scene was completely lost on me.

It was quite unsettling, especially in the beginning. The drummer bunny is definitely nightmare material. I liked that there was a twist in the second half as well but it wasn't that scary after all that.

The director of Caveat had basically no money, and only a total fool would let this stop him. Here is a new horror film from Ireland that reminds us that, even when the movie was crafted by a nobody, the right nobody will still find ways to live up to the great masters of dread - giants like Von Trier, Lynch, Tarr, even relative newcomers like Aster and Eggers.

Its limited cast and remote-island setting create a sense of isolation that's on par with The Lighthouse. The sets certainly look set-like, but in a good way, like our hero is trapped in one of the doll-houses from Hereditary, specifically one that's been forgotten and thus rotted with time. Certain motifs (and possible supernatural characters) will also bring to mind Von Trier's Antichrist and Lynch's Inland Empire. Even when the film is uneventful, the ambiance recalls such masterpieces of dread and desolation as The Turin Horse. It's all here!

That isn't to say that the film is unoriginal. The plot itself is an unusual one, albeit reminding me of one of those stories from the "no sleep" Subreddit where a user tells us about this "weird new job" he applied for that turns out to be something sinister indeed.

We meet Isaac, played by Jonathan French, an utterly unknown but still utterly convincing actor; we don't know much about the character, yet he exudes an unmistakable weariness that suggests a merciless past. He is tasked with "babysitting" a woman named Olga (Leila Sykes in a performance that sometimes made me think of Paul Dano), who lives alone in a dilapidated cabin on a small island in West Cork and only breaks out of her docile state when necessary. Olga's only companion, it seems, is the drumming rabbit toy that may or may not be alive (at least in some sense) but Isaac suspects there may be secrets behind these moldy walls.

There's a funny sequence when Isaac's employer, the hilariously uncaring Barret (Ben Caplan), outfits him with gear for his job: a chained harness that essentially puts him on a dog's leash. "Every job has a uniform", he nonchalantly explains.

This really is an outstanding directorial debut, and its many intricate touches explain how it can work so well despite "backyard movie"-level budget. There are several nifty and visually interesting shots, the dark-ambient score (reminding me both of Lustmord and Angelo Badalamenti) creates a consistent sense that something horrible is brewing, and the foley of creaking floors, howling winds, and rattling chains only adds to the already-stellar atmosphere.

And yes, this is one of those "atmospheric slow burns" that horror fans and film bros will notoriously go on and on about. Despite this, there are a few "BOO!" moments, which rarely bothers me when it's in an otherwise effective film (one that has "earned" its startles after skillfully building up a threatening mood/world) but the accompanying images just weren't very scary here. The scare chord almost seemed to compensate for the goofy-looking special effect.

Some parts are also a bit predictable, as is almost always the case with horror films, even when they're this impressive and obscure. Then again, obscure may not be the right word for movies like this, at least not much longer. I often make the case that certain streaming services have become a sanctuary for those who have ideas to share - those who make movies because they want to make movies, not because another big-studio classic "needed" a remake or gender-bent reboot.

Indeed, it's thanks to the horror-focused streaming service Shudder that we got to see Caveat, and the continuing COVID restrictions and theatre-release delays in the rest of the movie world mean we must continue looking for top-tier kino in new places. Last year, we had the Australian Relic by Natalie Erika James. This year, we have the Irish Caveat by Damian McCarthy. I am awaiting the next part in the trilogy (which I have now decided this is).

So an outsider takes a job to babysit a women with strange mental issues, and finds himself in a strange, paranormal conspiracy.

It's got some good moments, but if slow-moving horror with an average pay-out isn't your style, you may want to skip this one and stick to Rob Zombie or Eli Roth movies. It's a good intense horror with freaky moments, very entertaining. But it doesn't have much scares, violence, or gore, so thrill seekers may be disappointed.

Does have some issues. The ending was too ambiguous, some things aren't explained or added up, and there may be one or two "missed opportunities", but a true horror fan can appreciate this one.

There are some fantastic images in this film, great shots that are just perfect, fantastic sets, the acting is very good, it is all around great technical film making. Way above average I think. Very spooky. The problem is the script and the story are either not there at all or weren't translated to the screen. The premise is absurd, but you can look past it. But then the story strains suspension of disbelief to its breaking point, and even in the absurd logic of the movie nothing makes sense. Nothing is explained, motivations are nonsensical, people act completely irrationally.

The people involved with this film should work with a really great story person, they would do amazing things I'm sure.

All in all this wasn't a bad film at all the story was good though lacked a bit of suprise which was probably down to the direction .the setting was excellent and the majority of the acting was very good but what let it down was the casting of the female lead ,from the moment she spoke I lost complete faith .such a shame so much better than most of the horror I've seen lately and could of been great.