3 out of 5

Directed by: Damian McCarthy

While I’m sure the limitations were almost exclusively driven by budget, Damian McCarthy’s minimalist horror Caveat feels almost like a Dogme 95 genre entry, asking: how much tension can you craft without revealing any backstory, only having one set, less than 5 minutes of dialogue, and no more than two main props? McCarthy eagerly answered with “a lot,” though that was maybe forgetting another proposed limitation: to edit the film rather haphazardly – misplaced cuts, odd music cues, and curious focuses. That the movie can eke out significant creepiness despite those editing tics constantly undermining thing says quite a bit.

The film’s title surely refers to the setup: a man suffering from memory loss, Isaac (Johnny French), is asked by a man who suggests they were / are friends, Moe (Ben Caplan), to watch over his niece – Moe’s brother has recently taken his own life, and the niece, Olga (Leila Sykes), is not faring well. At the price of a few hundred a day for, essentially, babysitting, Isaac agrees. The caveats are actually many: Olga’s non-faring state amounts to periods of catatonia; and Moe’s brother’s house is an isolated, dilapidated shack on an island; and oh yeah, Isaac needs to wear a chain bound harness around the house so Olga doesn’t freak out. Don’t worry, though – it’s got plenty of slack, just not enough to get into Olga’s room or leave the house.

Isaac… is hesitant to accept, as anyone rightfully would be. Once he’s somewhat bullied into agreement, there’s now a secondary reference for the title: the viewer needs to make some carveouts for their willingness to go with the premise. Isaac – as an extension of writer McCarthy – is not at all curious about establishing some basics, like how we’ll shower in the harness, or be able to get food, or etcetera. There’s at least one moment offered to establish something related to such questions, but it’s only provided in passing – McCarthy does not care how literally we take any of this, and instead wants to primarily nail down the film’s mood. If you’re okay with that caveat, you’re set to proceed.

The set and sound design, the first albeit limited to a few rooms in the house, is perfect. The house breathes with decay; footsteps echo; foxes scream at night. Olga uses a small toy as a guide to various things of interest, and it is one of the most wholly unnerving props ever created, avoiding the kind of overt triggers of something like Annabelle and very much looking like a toy you can truly imagine a child dragging to threadbare as they age. The harness is another good invention: a “reasonable” affectation added to the house, but obviously also a complete oddity – it’s just interesting to how used to seeing Isaac drag a chain behind him you get.

McCarthy fills in bits and pieces of the story through some flashback, some untrustworthy-narrator exchanges, and lines delivered through distancing devices like intercoms and phones; we otherwise follow Isaac’s silent stalking through the house, tracking down sources of bumps in the night, or stumbling across a catatonic Olga in various places.

The lighting is both excellent and a hindrance, which we’ll again blame on budget. Zeroing our vision down to, often, a sole, pithy flashlight creates tension for what we’re not seeing, but this is where the aforementioned focus comes into play – sometimes it’s not clear if what the light is playing on is purposeful or not, and on more than one occasion, the minimalist score kicks in at an odd time – like, are we supposed to be scared / surprised by what we’re seeing? when the music says yes, but the visuals say no. So it feels like McCarthy only had so much time and resources, and took what shots he could to edit them into something cohesive.

And perhaps that’s also why the editing pace is… atrocious. Scenes will fade in and out for no real reason; perspectives will switch; sound effects will be slightly off-timed; it truly does feel like any given shot had a time limit, or there was an overall limited number of shots, and the film was constructed from those after the point. Again, that this manages to be cohesive and still unnerving is amazing, but it’s also very frustrating in the moment, when something that’s so gripping immediately ditches the weight with a cut, and then has to start again. We’re perhaps spoiled by digital filmmaking having made some of this “easier;” Caveat does feel like an indie production of a couple decades ago.

Hopefully, though, I’m communicating that the overall balance leans positive. McCarthy’s full length debut definitely reads like a debut, but while marked with many low-budget limitations, the writer / director doesn’t mistake twists or gore for substitutions for true creepiness in a horro movie, and manages to wring something still visually effective and interesting out of disparate pieces.