ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel, The Good, the Bad and the Verdict and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.
Ben Probert gives a superb performance as Eddie Hartwood, the titular protagonist of writer/director Luke Tedder’s The Caretaker (U.K., 2025), a mystery chiller ripe with dark familial secrets and upper-crust evildoings.
Traumatized to the point of muteness, Hartwood must take on the job of caretaker at Lockbridge Academy in the British countryside to avoid homelessness after his mother’s death. The school is run by the Abderdeen family: patriarch Charles the 2nd (P G Pearson), along with his scheming son Charles the 3rd (Scott Hume) and eccentric art teacher daughter Lisa (Lauren Shotton). The socially awkward Hartwood strikes up a relationship with American cleaner Marie (Mackenzie Larsen), which doesn’t go unnoticed by the jealous Charles the 3rd. A missing young woman who only Hartwood seems to see adds the prospect of supernatural possibilities.
Tedder infuses the film with gothic qualities and the drama is well played. The villains are portrayed so well that you can’t help but hope for some type of comeuppance, Marie makes for a truly sympathetic character, and Hartwood is a complex character whose backstory is unfolded throughout the unsettling The Caretaker. Highly recommended for fans of well-crafted chillers.
The Caretaker is available on digital platforms as of July 14, 2026.
