Bonus Episode - Caretaker with James Hood

0:23 Lee Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.

0:26 Chris I'm Chris.

0:27 Adam I'm Adam.

0:29 Lee And we are here this evening, we've got something very exciting planned.

0:33 Lee we have been in touch and had a little chat with James Hood, who made a film called The Caretaker, which showed at Romford Horror Film Festival, which we visited recently and did an episode on.

0:48 Lee James his short film Caretaker won best short film at the festival.

0:55 Lee and he has been in touch and said, would we like to see it and talk about it?

1:02 Lee so we have watched it, we're going to have a little chat, and then after this, there is an interview that I did when James was gracious enough to spend a couple of hours chatting with me online.

1:54 Lee and discussing making a a short independent movie as well as getting it out in the festival circuit and everything that's involved, all the stuff that we don't normally see. We normally just see we see it on the big screen and have no concept of how it's got on there. So he kind of talks us all the way through that process.

2:16 Lee yeah, so that's very exciting.

2:18 Lee So that will be shortly.

2:19 Chris And so what what should have happened? We were meant to see it at the festival, weren't we?

2:23 Chris Did there was there some change?

2:25 Adam No, it was Romford's Romford In fact, thank you to loads of people who have sort of been in contact and been very lovely and reposted about us, because our last episode was about our visit to Romford Film Festival, and the, they reposted the fact that we'd done an episode, but they mentioned the Caretaker in that post, which we hadn't seen.

3:32 Adam So,

3:33 Adam I think James thought, right, thought we had James, I think assumes that we were reviewing it in that episode.

3:38 Adam So he really rather lovely of him offered to let us see it, because we hadn't seen it when we were at the festival.

3:48 Chris And it won best short.

3:51 Lee Yes, yes, over the whole four days, four three days.

3:55 Lee yeah, so obviously a lot of films in there, there's a lot of competition.

3:59 Adam And and best and best film actually was was one of the films that we watched while we were there, wasn't it?

4:04 Adam It was

4:05 Lee Guess how to kill monsters.

4:06 Adam How to kill monsters was one best like feature length film.

4:11 Adam So, yeah, so we've seen now we've seen the best of the Romford horror, like the the winners of the best short and best feature length.

5:02 Chris Yeah.

5:03 Adam That's really cool.

5:04 Lee It's very cool.

5:05 Lee Yeah, so thanks again to James for, for sharing that with us so that we could go and watch it.

5:10 Lee it's yeah, it's it's a a strange one to to put out, again, I don't want to reiterate everything that's going to be in the interview.

5:20 Lee but yeah, he was saying, obviously, 25 minutes is quite long for a short, especially for one with that very slow pace, very dark.

5:27 Lee A lot of the time the shorts are sort of snappy, comedy, you know, more like, collection only and stuff like that.

5:35 Adam Yeah, be quite punchy, sort of usually, they're sort of,

5:40 Adam but I would say that this needs the length that it is.

5:46 Lee Absolutely.

5:47 Chris Yeah.

5:48 Adam Because it is it is all about slow burn, in a weird way, it was like the it had that sort of I don't know, that sort of weird melancholy of like a Ghost Story for Christmas.

6:44 Lee Yes. Like the vibe of that.

6:47 Adam It isn't, you know, it doesn't have a sort of overall narrative, it has a a mood to it and it has a sequence to it, but it doesn't have like a narrative in that sort of sense of like a ghost story for Christmas would, but yeah.

7:04 Chris But it was Something that really stood out, like the the music and sound design was very powerful with the imagery.

7:12 Chris I thought, and like especially the even in the, you know, there were a few shots where it's warm golden sunlight and it still felt quite bleak and it's quite a jux to position.

7:24 Adam Yeah.

7:25 Adam It definitely it was, and what I really liked about it is it was very bleak, but it was very sort of English bleak.

7:35 Chris

7:36 Lee Yeah, that was one of my takeaways is it's such a British as you say, that was why in my mind while I was watching it, I was like, yeah, this is Ghost story for Christmas, those seventies like the haunted and those type of shows that had that same feel.

8:31 Lee That sort of oppressive, and yeah, and the isolation and everything, yeah, it was really drew me in to a very dark place.

8:41 Adam Yeah.

8:42 Adam And and obviously, obviously we don't want to sort of like go over what's in what's in the interview or everything.

8:49 Adam But I mean, it's it's basically for want of a better phrase, a study in

8:57 Adam you know, what it means to for when people get older and develop dementia.

9:04 Chris Yeah.

9:05 Adam But in a way that probably surprises you as it goes, you think you know what you're looking at, and then, yeah.

9:15 Adam And it's that sort of there it's like not a haunted house, it's a haunted mind.

10:02 Lee Yes, yes, that is yeah, that is a very good way of putting it, definitely.

10:08 Adam And yeah, I really,

10:11 Adam it has to be said though, the tiles in the bathroom were the carpet from the Shining.

10:19 Lee Yes.

10:20 Adam And if, you know, if they're original features, that's that's fantastic, you know.

10:24 Chris That's really cool.

10:26 Lee Yeah, they were I spotted that on the first watch as well. I was like, oh, yeah, that's the, but yeah.

10:32 Lee But yeah, obviously it was a it was a fairly common design back then, but yeah, it it hasn't really carried through so it feels so retro now as you say, because of the shining, you automatically associate that design with it.

10:44 Lee And it is it's funny because it is that same isolation and it it sort of comes from the same place, doesn't it of people's mental state.

10:55 Lee So it is actually quite close to the shining as you say, that's quite a strange.

10:59 Lee synchronicity.

11:43 Chris Yeah.

11:43 Adam Oh, no, definitely.

11:45 Adam And also in line with our, I think that, I mean, certainly with Romford Horror and obviously when we've been going to Horror and Sea at South End, and a lot of the same sort of filmmakers and everything are all sort of club together.

12:01 Adam the mother in Caretaker was also in the haunting of the Lady Jane. She was the the main girl's mother in the Lady Jane.

12:16 Lee Oh, yeah, I thought she looked vaguely familiar and I couldn't quite place it. Yeah, yeah.

12:21 Adam But again, like I say, there's going to be just like we could do like the Peter Frame Rock family trees for the films we've seen at the festivals of like how it crosses over and who's in what and, you know, that that director's acted in that, and, you know, it's yeah, it's really great.

12:38 Chris Yeah.

12:39 Lee Fantastic little community. And again, having Romford as we say, right on our doorstep, but it it it seems to be a good way a good place for all these people to meet and get together. And I'm sure a lot of collaborations and things come out of days like, you know, like weekends like the Romford Film Festival where they're all there and they're all hanging out after the film's are shown and having a drink together and chatting and yeah, it seems quite a melting pot of ideas and yeah, collaborations and yeah, I can't I can't wait to see what comes next.

13:54 Chris Yeah.

13:54 Adam Yeah.

13:57 Adam But yeah, but overall the Caretaker definitely worth seeking out.

14:01 Adam And yeah,

14:03 Adam be prepared, it is,

14:05 Chris it's a powerful piece.

14:06 Adam Yeah, it will it will leave you affected.

14:11 Adam You know, you will not it's it's not one that you're just going to forget about.

14:15 Chris Unless you're not very human and, you know.

14:18 Adam have have no thoughts about the way the brain works. Yeah, you know.

15:04 Lee I would say that sounds like me, but it affected me as well. I was left thinking about it for a few days.

15:08 Lee It's yeah, it is a really clever piece. It really niggles and gets at you, doesn't it?

15:13 Adam Yeah.

15:14 Adam So, so well done to to James.

15:17 Chris Yeah.

15:19 Adam And

15:21 Adam Yeah, you said that so you obviously the interview, you said you did it in two parts, Lee?

15:26 Lee Yes, yes.

15:27 Lee So just to make the listeners aware, when you listen to the interview, we recorded half, then we had some technical issues, and we had to come back to it a few days later.

15:37 Lee So you will notice that the sound quality is quite different in the first half to the second half.

15:42 Lee but yeah, I mean it it's all it's all good and, yeah, it was a fantastic chat.

15:48 Lee yeah, and found out an awful lot.

15:50 Lee So that's coming up right now.