Watcher

This was a fantastic paranoia thriller. Maika Moore is fantastic as the lead actress and the villian was also perfectly cast, he was quite menacing. The story here is very well done, albeit derivitive and at times you must suspend some levels of your disbelief, but it provides just enough twists and turns throughout to keep it from getting stale. With that said, the movie can also be kind of slow in parts, but I feel like it was a slow burn done right. Hitchcock would be proud of this film. The ending does it right, however I would've enjoyed an extra five minutes just to know what ended up with these characters, but I think I got the jist of it, so I digress. If you're looking for a good paranoia horror/thriller, this would be a great choice and you could definitely do worse. I recommend to people who enjoy a go slow burn that leads up to creepy conclusion. 3.5 creepy creepertons out of.

Having enjoyed Chloe Okuno's segment in V/H/S 94 to some extent, I was exciting for her feature debut. Watcher is a film that reminds you of some of Hitchcock's works, be it in building a slow-burn suspense drama set in a mysteriously new atmosphere and in the way the lead character is established. Chloe also extracts an excellent performance from Maika Monroe who portrays the "fish out of water" protagonist. The best thing about her portrayal is that she manages to induce the same levels of anxiety in audiences too. She effortlessly makes you step into her shoes - the confusion she feels by not fully grasping the local language, that feeling of loneliness when you're in a new place spending days mostly by yourself, the burgeoning dread of having a stalker - all conveyed remarkably well.

The script doesn't have any major twists or surprises to offer, but it keeps you invested in whatever Julia is up to. The only trope I didn't enjoy is the indifferent husband, which gets repeated to terrible effect here. I truly enjoyed the film's aesthetics - be it the use of space, color grading, choice of camera angles, and sparse lighting. Cinematographer Benjamin Kirk Nielsen uses extended shots to convey a sense of paranoia. I'm pretty stoked for anything Chloe Okuno does next!

I didn't really know much about "Watcher" before I started watching it. In truth there's not all that much to know to be honest:

A couple moves to Romania. Husband works while wife sits around waiting for him to come home. Wife believes that somebody is stalking her and husband thinks she is going crazy.

It sounds ridiculously simple because it is. We've seen it before - HOWEVER - Okuno clearly set out to make a brilliantly executed suspense flick and did just that.

The movie is contained and everything in it is there for a reason. Cinematography and especially the sound design is incredibly well done and makes the simplest thing like shopping for groceries an unnerving experience.

And finally the biggest praise has to go to Monroe. She has come a long way from "It Follows" and here she brings this simple movie to life with outstanding (and very believable) acting that successfully makes you question her sanity. Hopefully she'll bless us with her talent in many more (horror) movies to come.

Now obviously "Watcher" isn't the perfect movie even though everything is done so well. The fact is that we've seen it all before - countless times - and Okuno plays it extremely safe here by taking no chances whatsoever. This makes for an underwhelming movie experience as a whole and will no doubt bore some viewers.

Do I recommend "Watcher"? If you love suspense - YES. To witness Monroe's brilliant performance - YES. If you're looking for a great movie - NAH, go find something else.

Above average thriller about people looking out of windows. I wonder where I've seen that before? Of course the entire premise would fail if they'd only buy some curtains like normal people but they don't. Maika Monroe plays the damsel in distress but her character is a bit of a misery guts and spends most of the movie scowling, sulking or frowning. Burn Gorman is perfectly creepy. The movie itself is low key and by the numbers as if it was written and directed according to a check list but it's effective for all that. There's quite a lot of Romanian language so if you watch without subtitles you miss some dialogue but I'm not sure if you miss anything important.

I have to admit that I watched this alone in my room after dark, blinds are broken so the window perfectly exposed. There are some issues with the movie, like they had curtains they could've closed. But that wouldn't have changed the fact that she was being watched. She could have made less ambitious decisions, but if she played everything "smart" then we wouldn't have a movie to review. Great visuals, does a great job keeping the viewer anxious and paranoid. It's probably nothing you haven't seen before, but it's still got enough creep factor to deserve a watch. Definitely not something I'd watch again, but it was well done.