Ben Probert
There’s a moment just before the camera rolls when everything goes quiet. Not the peaceful kind of quiet, the heavy, charged silence where memory, fear, and intention all collide. For me, standing on the edge of a windswept coastline, about to step into the role of Eddie in The Caretaker, that silence felt familiar. I’ve been carrying it with me for most of my life.
My Journey as an Actor and Producer
Before I was ever trusted to lead a feature, I spent years taking on every role imaginable (supporting roles, background, producing, shooting, lighting, editing), whatever needed doing. Each job taught me something, from the patience of being on set all day, to the importance of collaboration, to the small, invisible decisions that shape a story.
I’ve been collaborating with Luke Tedder since 2011. Through a friend, he offered me a role in one of his early films, and from that very first project we clicked. We’ve made shorts, features, and everything in between, learning side-by-side, pushing each other, and building a creative partnership that feels like a decade long conversation.
Working with Luke and the team at Landa Pictures has always felt like a strange but wonderful tradition: take a quiet idea, bring it into a dark location, and see what emotional truth surfaces.
In 2019, we were deep into another feature when COVID brought everything to a standstill. During lockdown, I poured all that frustration and energy into creating Self-Isolation, a micro-project written, directed, and performed with my brother entirely at home. Somehow, this tiny film ended up winning multiple awards, proving that creativity doesn’t shut down, even when the world does.
Between lockdowns, we shot A Universe Apart, a huge sci-fi epic that has taken years to build and is still in post-production for release later this year. It’s ironic that our biggest film is still being finished, while The Caretaker was written, shot, edited, and released in the meantime.
Luke wrote the role of Eddie specifically for me. He knew that my real passion was acting, even though much of my work had been behind the camera, and he wanted to give me the opportunity to lead a feature. That trust meant everything.
Acting was never just a career choice. It was a way of processing things I didn’t yet have the language for. Long before The Caretaker, before festivals and press kits, I was a kid obsessed with films, cataloguing VHS tapes by hand, saving my paper round money for cameras, trying to recreate emotions I didn’t fully understand yet. Performance became a place where vulnerability was allowed, even encouraged.
That’s why The Caretaker matters so deeply to me. Eddie isn’t just another character, he’s a culmination. A mute man carrying trauma and quiet resilience, written specifically with me in mind. Our long-running collaboration is built on trust and honesty, and with Landa Pictures we’ve always aimed to tell stories that sit in the discomfort, rather than escape it.
Horror has always fascinated me, not because of the scares, but because of the emotions hiding underneath. With Landa Pictures, we’ve always chased stories that feel human first and frightening second. So when The Caretaker began to take shape, it felt like the perfect fit, simple, atmospheric, character-driven, and grounded in the kinds of real fears we rarely talk about.
The Caretaker is a character-driven horror-thriller set at Lockbridge Academy; an isolated school perched on a windswept stretch of coastline. It’s a place controlled by the powerful aristocratic Aberdeen family, whose influence reaches deep into its walls and history.
Eddie, the character I play, is mute and trapped in a life caring for his cruel, ailing mother. When he’s on the brink of losing his home, he takes a caretaker position at Lockbridge, desperate for stability, but finds something far darker.
Inside the school, he meets Marie, a cleaner whose kindness cuts through Eddie’s silence. Their fragile connection shifts the course of his life, even as he begins uncovering a sinister mystery within Lockbridge, one that threatens to unravel the Aberdeen legacy forever. What unfolds is a horror story, yes… but one rooted firmly in character.
Creating this world was both challenging and magical. We didn’t have a massive crew or endless resources, what we had was atmosphere, commitment, and a belief in the power of character. Filming on location gave us so much for free: the creaking building, the natural shadows, the oppressive silence inside certain rooms. At times, the building felt like another cast member.
Preparing for Eddie meant stripping everything back. I researched mutism, learned sign language, altered my physicality, and leaned into stillness in a way I never had before. Everything had to come from breath, movement, stillness, and vulnerability. Without dialogue, every movement mattered. Every breath became part of the performance. Luke understood how to guide that performance, when to push, and when to simply give me space to exist in the moment.
But the hardest part was the emotional pressure. Eddie’s silence isn’t emptiness, it’s compression. He holds everything inside, and that pressure feels uncomfortable. There were days on set where the line between the character and myself blurred, where the horror wasn’t supernatural but internal. And that, to me, is where the film truly lives.
Finishing the film didn’t feel like an ending, it felt like the beginning of something bigger. Our cast and crew screening was the first time we all sat together and watched this eerie, atmospheric story that we had built. Hearing people react, jump, laugh, shift in their seats, was surreal.
Then the festivals came. Nominations, awards, conversations with audiences who connected with Eddie’s story. Seeing our small independent film reach people around the world was beyond anything we expected. Now, The Caretaker is heading toward its biggest milestone yet: a UK release set for February 2026.
And all of this happened while A Universe Apart (our giant sci-fi epic) continues its long journey through post-production. A reminder that filmmaking isn’t linear, it simply happens in the order it needs to.
Horror has always been at its most powerful when it reflects something human. The genre gives us permission to explore trauma, fear, and repression without sanitising them. In recent years, we’ve seen a shift toward character-driven horror, stories that unsettle not just through imagery, but through empathy.
The Caretaker exists in that space. It asks the audience to sit with silence, to listen without sound, and to recognise that monsters don’t always announce themselves. Sometimes they’re inherited. Often they’re institutional. More often than not, they’re buried inside us.
If this journey has taught me anything, it’s that horror thrives not in spectacle, but in honesty. In the quiet moments. In the shadows that are more emotional than supernatural. Independent filmmaking has shown me that limitations can become the style, and trust between collaborators, between friends, can shape entire films.
Closing note
As The Caretaker premiered at FrightFest, I found myself thinking back to that quiet before the camera rolled. The silence hasn’t gone away, but now it feels purposeful. If this film does anything, I hope it reminds people that even in horror, especially in horror, the most powerful stories are the ones we’re brave enough to feel.
From supporting roles and behind-the-camera work to leading a feature written specifically for me, the journey here has been messy, unpredictable, and unforgettable. And with The Caretaker releasing soon and more stories on the horizon, I’m excited (even a little scared) in the best possible way, to see where the next chapter takes us.
