A caregiver is called to replace someone else at a remote house to take care of an elderly lady. Once she arrives, she notices things are not as they should be with very little food in the house, no care items available, and eventually, something more sinister starts happening.
Written by Craig Hamman and directed by Joe Cornet, the film is one that is competent, but the story is not all that scary. Yes, the set-up leads to think it would be scary, but for horror fans who have seen settings like these over and over, it’s not all that new or surprising, much less scary. For casual horror viewers, it should work, however. The writing and directing give the impression that the folks behind the film wanted to make a scary movie, but perhaps budget or other limitations led to things being held back. The film has a few jump scares, but most of them don’t work for a die-hard horror fan. That being said, they should work for the general public looking for easy scares.
The cast here is limited to five people including Eileen Diets in the role of the sweet lady needing a caregiver, Natalie Denise Sperl in the role of the caregiver, Anna Oris as her friend whom she calls, director Joe Cornet as a Detective, and Eric Roberts as the exposition character. The limited cast here is not an issue, oftentimes, these kinds of stories being kept to one location and a few characters helps create a feeling of claustrophobia and a connection between the people involved. Here, it kind of works. The cast does decently well with Natalie Denise Sperl and Eileen Dietz shining throughout. The two of them establish a rapport fairly fast, just like their characters, and get most of the screen time. They work well together and that is a thing to be thankful for. Eric Roberts gives what can only be described as a regular Eric Roberts performance of the 2020s. Anna Oris is decent. And Joe Cornet is unfortunately a bit flat, which is too bad here.
In terms of look, the film very looks its budget, meaning that the lower budget of the film leads to it looking a bit cheaper than expected. Something is off with the look of things, but the main cast makes it easy to quickly forget that. The special effects here are interesting, but to not spoil the twist, cannot be fully described or discussed here. However, they look cool and show talent from those involved in creating them. Their design and application look familiar, but in a good way.
Night of the Caregiver is horror for those who don’t watch a lot of it. While it has good ideas, it fails to truly scare, especially for an experienced viewer of the spooky. The film is not terrible, it’s simply not scary enough. The jump scares will work for some, but others will see them coming from a mile. The ending does have a twist and it works, but it’s something that cuts down the rewatchability of the film once it’s known. Overall, the film is fairly middle of the road with the performances by Sperl and Dietz saving the film.