Starring Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman 

Directed by Chloe Okuno

Universal, in cinemas now

 

When Julia moves to Bucharest with her boyfriend, she is convinced that the man in the window across the street has an unhealthy fascination with her.

There is much to admire in Chloe Okuno’s debut feature. As well as being an efficient and engaging horror-chiller (albeit more chiller than horror), Watcher asks some genuinely interesting questions in its opening acts. With little to do, and not speaking Romanian, Julia (Maika Monroe) fills the long hours while her husband is at work in ever growing fear of the mysterious man (Burn Gorman) she suspects of watching her from the building opposite. But who is watching who? Who is really doing the stalking? Who is the victim, and who the aggressor? After all, there is a serial killer on the loose…

Okuno directs with confidence and economy, framing Julia’s increasing insecurity and fear with the alienation of being a stranger in a strange land, reminiscent of Julie Christie’s Venetian dislocation in Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now or Joseph Cotton looking for Orson Welles in the crumbling splendour of post-war Vienna in The Third Man. Having said that, the real cinematic godfather of this film is Alfred Hitchcock. Aside from the obvious callbacks to Rear Window, the movie is peppered with the master’s trademarks – the blond and the brunette, and a criss-cross, ambiguous, looking-glass morality.

Watcher is at its most effective and original when asking those questions – but perhaps less so when answering them.

Verdict: While the finale is well-executed, I was left wishing the narrative had been allowed to pursue the far darker and more unsettling path suggested by its opening reels. 7/10

Martin Jameson