Starring: Natalie Denise Sperl, Eileen Dietz, Eric Roberts
Directed by: Joe Cornet
Haunted house films are seriously hard to come by in this day & age – let me correct myself, WORTHWHILE haunted house films that is. You’ve got to have the gripping backstory, an atmosphere that inspires fright, and scares that would knock the socks off of your Aunt Tilly. Then, there are some films that slip through the cracks and hope that they’ll be the next great spook-tacular offering…which leads us past the fresh row of body bags and straight to the icebox, where we find NIGHT OF THE CAREGIVER.
The film, directed by Joe Cornet, follows hospice caregiver Juliet (Sperl) who has just taken a side-gig (supposedly for quite a bit of cash) to watch over “cancer” patient Lillian (Dietz) at her secluded home. I quoted the evil C-word because right off the rip it seems that Lillian isn’t exactly truthful with her claims and maladies. Regardless, Juliet gives her the benefit of the doubt and begins her watch for the evening, and as all suspected notions would point to, some supernatural occurrences begin to plague the house and mess with Juliet’s mind. As the film limps along, we’re offered up a side story (that is ultimately related) with Eric Roberts playing a doctor whose specialty is parapsychology and a police detective (Cornet in double-duty). Both seemed oddly out of place and really didn’t offer much to the entirety of the story.
As for the remainder of this dissection, I was extremely pleased to see Eileen Dietz returning to the screen, and hopefully this will open the doors wide for her to step back into the business. Unfortunately, that’s where the good times come to an abrupt end – the scares aren’t scary, the dialogue is monotonous and deflating, and the movie simply never gets out of the starting gate. I’ll offer up credit to anyone willing to jump into what could be a potentially chilling tale, but it’s got to have that sharpened edge of execution, and that’s where NIGHT OF THE CAREGIVER fails to carve out a noteworthy notch on the ol’ tree of gloom & doom. My advice is to hit up the Google-machine and hunt down “haunted house movies” and steer clear of this one.
At the tender age of 6, Matt was indoctrinated into the horror genre by his mother, who asked him to sit down and watch "The Exorcist" with her - ever since then, it's been a blood-soaked, neon-lit, fever dream of an existence. "You don't make horror...horror makes you."
(Can't remember who came up with this quote, but he was probably off-kilter like I am).
