HOARDER

***

Directed by James Owen

Starring Daisy Jelley, Paul Casar, David Sterne, Annabella Lanyon, Terry Bamberger. 

Horror, UK, 90 minutes. 

Reviewed as part of Tubi FrightFest 2026

Community nurses Melissa and Eric are conducting in-home flu vaccination visits, but when they get to Fred and Doris Hunt’s derelict farmhouse, everything feels wrong. It’s clear that Fred is struggling with poverty, isolation and his wife’s dementia, but there’s something else in the dirty, cluttered house, and Melissa must find out what it is, if she’s going to get out alive.  

As a horror movie, HOARDER has a light touch – there is nothing cruel here, or even especially violent, although there is gore. But the story of Fred and Doris is genuinely frightening. Their life together was wonderful once, filled with love, books, hobbies and visitors. Now they live in the wreckage of all of that, elderly people left to battle on alone, poor, sick and overwhelmed. It happened to them and, the movie suggests, such a fate could be coming for any of us. 

The cast is excellent, the pacing is perfect, and characters romp through an exciting and clever plot, full of twists and surprises, just like the hoarder’s house that Melissa must navigate as she solves the mystery at the heart of the movie.  

The house itself is a masterpiece of set building, so believable as a hoarder house that it made my skin itch. And I’m very appreciative of the skillful lighting, which is authentically dim but still bright enough to allow us to actually see everything. There are many comparable films that don’t achieve this. 

HOARDER is a thoroughly enjoyable horror, hitting all the right notes. There are gruesome scenes and jump scares, subtle touches of humour and interactions that are genuinely moving. It’s fun, clever and incisive, with plenty of plot twists and an ending that is both satisfying and deeply disturbing. 

Robyn Fraser