Obsessão Fatal

A psychopath goes to extreme lengths to stalk an unsuspecting young woman, installing surveillance equipment in her apartment and playing with her emotions. Hanks is quite creepy as the stalker, a loner with a warped sense of reality. Talancon is quite alluring as his prey. The gimmick here is that much of the film is told from the perspective of the weirdo. In fact, much of the early part of the film is devoted to what he captures with his hidden camera. The viewer does not even see the guy until half way through the film. While this approach is interesting for a little while, it soon becomes irritating. One good thing is the short running time.

Excellent.

The director Eric Nicholas creates a creepy atmosphere throughout this film about obsession with a very original directing film style. The audience is immersed into the role of an observer watching a very convincing Ana Claudia Talancón as a young women living alone in a small apartment who is being stalked by a very disturbed Collin Hanks. The acting is solid and the film keeps a sustained tension throughout. Also not to overlook the script written by Eric Nicholas which is well structured for this kind of film and delivers a surprising, haunting ending.

Highly recommended!

Alone with Her hit theaters in early 2007, a limited release of course. Despite that, I'm surprised that this film hasn't gotten more attention since then. Colin Hanks is Doug, one of those perverted types that carry hidden cameras in their bags to glimpse up women's skirts and the like. While out doing this, he spots Amy (Ana Claudia Talancón) and sets his sights on her for the remainder of the film. He breaks into her apartment and rigs it with hidden cameras, microphones, etc. to use what he learns to try and weasel into her life... and to watch.

The first thing you notice upon watching Alone with Her is the innovative nature in which it's shot. The entire film is seen through Doug's hidden cameras. It throws the viewer off guard, and makes us feel almost as voyeuristic as Doug. It also makes the film so much more unnerving than it would've been had it been shot in a conventional manner. We get a front row seat to the images that we have no right to see, as well as the nastier bits which hit harder when glimpsed through this unknown eye.

Doug is a truly pathetic character. Having no confidence and no life, he watches Amy 24/7. He watches to see what movies and music she likes so he can pretend to have something in common with her when they meet. He has hissy fits when he hears her make a date with another man. In some of the most disturbing sequences of the film, he punishes her, sabotaging her love-life by poisoning her milk and dabbing some kind of skin irritant all over her bed. He sabotages her life time and time again, all while poking the holes needed to weasel himself into her good graces.

This film isn't brutal or graphic, and it doesn't need to be. This does more without gore than something like Inside does with wall-to-wall amounts of it. Alone with Her is a deeply affecting look at the nature of stalkers and voyeurism. It's the type of film that will make you feel unclean after watching, something that will crawl inside of your psyche and stay there.

I saw this movie at Fantasia in Montreal and was blown away! This is very ballsy film-making. Nicholas takes big chances, not only with the movie's style (shot completely through hidden cameras) but also with its pacing and horrifying climax.

The film left me very disturbed and days afterward was still haunting me.

Further, the film-making inspired me to strive for something fresh and original in my own work -- to break some rules.

In terms of performances, the two leads (Talancon and Hanks) are phenomenal. Completely real. And Jordana Spiro also kicks ass in her supporting role as Amy's best friend. Great work overall!

Where The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity used their found footage format to enhance the scares rather than hinder them, Alone with Her utilizes its style to create a suspenseful stalker thriller, even if it hits all the familiar genre beats. Alone with Her is shown from various hidden cameras inside a young woman's house that were set up by a stalker. There are also video cameras attached to him making you the stalker. Nothing about Alone with Her should be terribly surprising to even a casual viewer, but the way the cameras are set up can lead to some really unsettling images. This is a very character- driven suspense film. It's subtle and doesn't rely on elaborate chase scenes or convoluted plot twists. Alone with Her may not