Caveat (2020)


Isaac, a brooding drifter suffering from memory loss, agrees to look after Olga, the niece of his acquaintance Moe. A troubled woman prone to bouts of catatonia, Olga lives in an old, ramshackle house on an isolated island in the middle of a dark lake. Isaac agrees to wear a chained harness that prevents him from going into certain rooms. He gradually comes to learn of the unsettling history of the house and the unquiet dead it harbours within its walls...

Written and directed by Damian McCarthy, Caveat is steeped in the Gothic tradition. With distinct echoes of the work of Edgar Allan Poe, it is ripe with a lingering atmosphere of morbidity and decay. McCarthy's screenplay toys with themes such as psychological rot, dark family secrets, and the aftermath of unspeakable violence and cruelty. The story unfolds within the creepy confines of the lonely, mouldy house, with myriad forbidden rooms, hidden passageways and concealed bloody secrets. The house itself is cut off from civilisation, standing as it does upon a lonely island in the middle of a vast lake.

McCarthy builds an uneasy atmosphere from the get-go. As Isaac (Johnny French) is fastened into his harness – the chain of which coils throughout the house and snakes down into the dark, gaping maw of the basement – the audience are invited to wonder what might happen if he needs to leave. Does his acquaintance Moe (Ben Caplan) not trust him? Can Isaac trust Moe? What has happened to Olga (Leila Sykes) that has rendered her a ghost in her own life? Why on earth would Isaac agree to be restrained in such a way? From here, McCarthy's calculated direction ensures tension only builds. As Isaac learns more about the house and Olga's family, tension turns to foreboding dread and eventually outright terror. Haunting images flash through the shadows of the house - not least the sight of a creepy toy rabbit used as a sort of divining rod to locate a terrible, hidden thing within the walls...

As events uncoil towards a shocking, twisted denouement, Isaac begins to remember being in the house once before, long ago, but struggles to piece together the fragments. He is as shackled to the past as he is trussed up in his harness, prevented from exploring certain parts of the house, perhaps prevented from remembering something vital. The setting of the island not only serves as a moody backdrop for the action, but conveys the isolation of the characters and enables McCarthy's Gothic themes to pool to the fore. The lonely, confined setting is used to explore human nature, free from outside interference. The island, a bridge between past and present, real and imagined, speaks of displacement and forgotten history, and, like the motives of certain characters and the foundations of the very ground on which they tread, much of it is submerged and unknowable. 

Caveat marks a striking feature debut for McCarthy, quietly unfurling as a masterful piece of Gothic shock cinema with plenty of chilling, sleep-with-the-light-on moments.

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