Watcher

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 found this thriller pretty enjoyable. The acting was phenomenal, particulacy from Maika, our lead. Some of these sequences were so anxiety-inducing, even when our lead is just walking down the street I couldn't help but tense up.

My only main disappointment was the ending. While it was building towards a satisfying conclusion, it just ends abruptly. I wanted more from it. But maybe that just shows how well everything was before hand. Also some awkward dialogue but that's just me nitpicking, it's not that big of a deal.

Overall, while I don't think I'll just check this one out again, I had a good time with it and I'm excited to see what else the director while be making next!

"Watcher" follows Julia, an American who moves to Bucharest with her husband, Francis. While Francis is fluent in the language--his mother is Romanian--Julia is not, and struggles with the language barrier. Even worse, she also finds herself being watched by a man in the adjacent apartment building, and comes to believe that not only is he stalking her, but that he is a serial killer.

It goes without saying that "Watcher" is playing with a familiar concept--this is a premise we have seen in a large number of films, most famously in Hitchcock's "Rear Window," but "Watcher" also pays respects to Roman Polanski's "apartment" films, most notably (and effectively) "The Tenant" (the other two being "Rosemary' Baby" and "Repulsion"). What makes it stand out, however, is that it is well-acted, visually elegant, and at times throttling in its suspense. There are a number of scenes in this film that (no pun intended) grab you by the throat.

"Watcher" is the breed of film that toes the line regarding whether or not the fears and paranoias of the protagonist are legitimate, or the product of something else, but director Chloe Okuno telegraphs it intelligently by positioning the audience in tandem with Julia--as we watch her sink into her isolation, we are isolated alongside her--and it is because of this that her fears play out as believable, despite her husband's skepticism. The writing here is both subtle and smart, and there are a few key moments that are as dislocating to the viewer as they are to the protagonist; the screenplay is multi-pronged in a way that makes the audience question not what they are seeing, but rather, what it is indicative of. Julia's disconnect from the language only helps to reinforce a sense of suffocation, and the gloomy, rain-soaked Art Deco architecture of the city only amplifies the sense of unease.

Of course, none of this would work without a believable lead, and Maika Monroe plays this character very effectively. Burn Gorman is also extremely effective as the mysterious creep across the way. The film's finale, though tense, is still fairly downbeat (which is the status quo in this film), but it offers enough grand guignol to be memorable and shocking. In the end, while "Watcher" is not necessarily revelatory, it is a well-crafted, nervy take on a well-worn concept. There are some standout moments in this film that make it worth watching for any genre fan. 7/10.