Someone's Watching Me!

I couldn't believe my luck when I stumbled on to this movie at a local video store in Iceland. It had subtitles and everything. What a find! As many of you know, this is the "lost" John Carpenter movie, and it's nothing short of fantastic. It plays like an homage to the likes of Dario Argento and Alfred Hitchcock, although the Hitchcock influences are more apparent here.

Lauren Hutton moves into a fancy apartment building and starts receiving mysterious phone calls and presents. And we, as the audience, know that this stalker lives in the building across from hers and that he's watching her every move.

Although not much actually happens here, the film's gradual buildup to a terrifying finale is nothing short of brilliant, orchestrated by a very fresh John Carpenter at the height of his creativity.

The cinematography (especially the POV's) makes one think of Dario Argento but the atmosphere (and storyline) reeks of Hitchcock. John Carpenter has admitted to the fact of having been inspired by both.

I strongly recommend this film. If you can locate it, that is.

John Carpenter's SOMEONE'S WATCHING ME! is an undisguised homage to REAR WINDOW, with nods to BLACK CHRISTMAS (an avowed favourite of Carpenter's) and the Italian Giallo genre, specifically Argento's DEEP RED. One elaborate scene, wherein the anxious heroine drops a knife through a grate, and then squeezes laboriously into the crawlspace beneath to hide, is a clear riff on giallo scenography.

The material is stale, but the execution is not. Carpenter's virtuoso use of gliding camera shots, shadow detail, composition, and mise en scene, ratchets up the suspense even during what would otherwise be incidental scenes in another director's hands. On occasion, TV-movie limpness creeps in momentarily, but, in the main, the picture's production is very professionally handled.

One major irritant is Lauren Hutton's protagonist, Leigh. She is endlessly spunky, constantly talking to herself, always rushing headlong into situations. It's grating right from the start, but as events unfold, her happy-go-lucky ebullience morphs (in the viewers' eyes) into a kind of blithe stupidity. Most thinking people would have closed their curtains, locked their doors, taken the prank calls more seriously, or perhaps moved away (pride be damned), much sooner than did she. Certainly most people wouldn't have walked knowingly into the stalker's trap, as Leigh does at the very end. "Someone's Watching Me" is nerve-wracking enough for one to suspend one's incredulity, and good enough to belong in, or just below, the rarefied sphere of Carpenter's two best, HALLOWEEN and THE THING.

The TV director Leigh Michaels (Lauren Hutton) moves from New York to the fancy apartment building Arkham Tower in Los Angeles to forget a relationship. She is hired by a local television and befriends the lesbian assistant Sophie (Adrienne Barbeau). Then she dates the philosophy professor Paul Winkless (David Birney) and starts a relationship with him. Leigh is a woman that likes to joke and out of the blue she receives gifts and strange phone calls. Soon she realizes that a stranger is stalking her driving her mad with phone calls, gifts and letters. Leigh and Paul decide to go to the police but the police inspector tells that he cannot do anything to help her. Leigh decides to investigate the opposite tower block, she witness the stranger killing Sophie. She calls the police but no one but Paul believes her. What can she do?

"Someone's Watching Me!" is one of the first movies by John Carpenter and homage to Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Windown". Despite the low budget since it is made for television, the story holds the attention of the viewer until the last scene. The cat-and-mouse game between the stalker and Leigh is tense and full of suspense with great performance of Lauren Hutton. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Alguém Me Vigia" ("Someone's Watching Me")

Note: On 12 July 2020, I saw this film again.

Note: On 24 February 2025, I saw this film again.

I never expected that a TV movie like this early work from John "Thrillmaster" Carpenter could be thrilling and excellent as this one was made. Thanks Mr Carpenter. Excellent entertainment and terrific conclusion.

An early John Carpenter film, I had never even heard of and surprisingly effective bearing in mind its 70s TV origins. So rather leisurely at first and I had bit of a problem with Lauren Hutton's character. She has a rather off putting way of 'joking about', or 'wacky' as she refers to it and also is rather blunt in her rebuttals of invitations from the opposite sex. This slightly awkward introduction to a leading lady with some baggage is compounded in the extraordinary moment when she makes the advances in a very 70s bar. but never mind, this soon gets going, everyone does a sterling job and carpenter really comes into his own as the movie progresses. The final half hour is as good as it gets and is pretty faultless. Effective music, varied and compelling camera work and increasingly believable dialogue. Well worth a watch for anyone and required for Carpenter fans who will see much that is further developed in later films.