Since the change of the century, we are being accustomed that every now and then the horror panorama gets hit by a small independent Irish creepy movie that holds so much personality and obscurity that it becomes one of the fans’ favorites of the year. With Conor McMahon’s Dead Meat (2004) and Billy O’Brien’s Isolation (2005), the door was open, and then we’ve recently had Lorcan Finnegan’s Without Name (2016), Brian O’Malley’s The Lodgers (2017), and Aislinn Clarke’s The Devil’s Doorway (2018) to certify this is not a random happening, Irish horror movies are always to take in consideration.
One of the most notorious titles of last year was Caveat (2020). The movie centers on a lone drifter named Isaac, who accepts a job to look after his landlord’s niece, Olga, for a few days in an isolated house on a remote island. It seems like easy money, but there’s a catch: he must wear a leather harness and chain that restricts his movements to certain rooms. Once Olga’s uncle, Barrett leaves the two of them alone, a game of cat and mouse ensues as Olga displays increasingly erratic behavior as a trapped Isaac makes a series of horrific discoveries in the house.
Caveat (2020) is the debut feature film of writer and director Damian Mc Carthy, who already got some visibility with his awards-winner short film He Dies at the End (2010). The main cast is formed by Leila Sykes, Jonathan French, Ben Caplan, and Conor Dwane.
Through 2020, the movie has been part of the lineup of international genre film festivals like IndieCork in Ireland, Screamfest Horror Film Festival in the USA, Frightfest in the UK, and later this year in Imagine Film Festival in the Netherlands. At Freak Show Horror Film Festival it won the Freaky Awards for Best Actress (Leila Sykes) and the Jury Award. Now, it is scheduled to be part of the Shudder catalog on June 3, 2021.
Watch here the official trailer for Caveat (2020).
