WATCHER (2022)

Studio:     IFC Midnight/Shudder
Director:    Chloe Okuno
Writer:     Chloe Okuno, Zack Ford
Producer:  Mason Novick, John Finemore, Aaron Kaplan, Sean Perrone, Roy Lee, Steven Schneider, Derek Dauchy
Stars:     Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman

Review Score:

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Summary:

After moving to Romania with her husband, an American woman comes to suspect an unsettling man watching her from across the street may be a serial killer.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Julia and her husband Francis leave America and move into an apartment in Bucharest, Romania due to Francis’s job. Julia begins suspecting that a man in a building across the street, later revealed to be named Daniel Weber, is watching her from his window. Although Julia becomes increasingly unsettled by Weber, Francis repeatedly assures her she is safe.

While out walking together, Julia and Francis pass by a nearby crime scene where a woman was decapitated. From dinner conversation with one of Francis’s co-workers as well as internet research Julia does on her own, Julia learns the crime connects to four similar murders attributed to a serial killer dubbed ‘The Spider.’ One female survivor describes feeling like she was being stalked before she was attacked. Julia wonders if Weber could be ‘The Spider.’

Julia goes to a movie theater alone. Weber sits directly behind her. Feeling uncomfortable, Julia hurries to a grocery store. Weber follows her. Julia sneaks out the market’s back door.

After Francis learns what happened, he and Julia return to the store to see who was following Julia on the security camera footage. Julia identifies Weber as possibly being the same man from across the street, but Francis doubts whether or not Weber did anything incriminating on the footage.

Julia’s next-door neighbor Irina invites her down the hall for a drink. In the context of discussing her ex-boyfriend Cristian, Irina shows Julia where she keeps a handgun for protection.

Julia returns home to see Weber staring at her again. Uncertain from his silhouette if he really is watching her, Julia raises her hand as if to wave. Weber raises his hand too.

Julia tells Francis about the latest incident and insists on calling the cops. Francis joins Officer Radu, who goes across the street to speak directly to Weber. When he returns, Francis doesn’t tell Julia what happened, but she becomes upset when Francis rationalizes that maybe she is overreacting about Weber.

The next day, Julia follows Weber. Weber leads her to an underground strip club where it turns out he works as a janitor and Irina works as a dancer. Julia tells Irina about what’s going on with Weber, but Irina downplays her concerns.

That night, Julia rouses sleeping neighbors when she seemingly hears screaming from Irina’s apartment. Julia convinces the building manager to open Irina’s door, but they find no one inside. The manager subsequently complains to Francis about Julia causing unnecessary problems.

Irina’s ex-boyfriend Crisitan shows up at Irina’s door looking for her. Julia gets Cristian to go across the street with her to confront Weber. Cristian knocks on Weber’s door and shouts a threat before leaving Julia alone. Julia knocks on the door and becomes confused when an old man opens it. On her way to the elevator, Julia sees Weber coming up the stairs.

Officer Radu returns to Francis and Julia’s apartment with Weber. Radu explains that Weber made a formal complaint about Julia following him and harassing his elderly father. Radu and Francis compel Julia to shake Weber’s hand as a sign of them agreeing that their conflict was merely a misunderstanding.

Julia attends a cocktail party with Francis and his co-workers. As everyone discusses how ‘The Spider’ was supposedly just captured, Julia realizes Francis and his friends are jokingly disparaging her belief that Weber was a boogeyman. An argument ensues in which Francis contends that Julia’s fantasy about Weber stalking her is exhausting. Julia storms off.

Julia takes the subway home alone. Weber is a passenger on the same train. After the train becomes temporarily stuck, Weber engages Julia in conversation. Julia asks why he has been following her. Weber claims he has to look after his sick father, so he people watches from his window as a hobby. No one ever noticed him before, and he supposedly interpreted Julia’s wave as a hello. Weber’s tone turns aggressive as he asks Julia for an apology. Julia begins suspecting there could be a decapitated head in the bag Weber is carrying.

Julia rushes home. While packing luggage to leave Francis, Julia hears music coming from Irina’s apartment. Julia enters the apartment to find Irina decapitated. Weber suffocates Julia from behind with his plastic bag. He then slits her throat and lies on the floor with her as she bleeds out.

Francis returns home. Worried when he sees the luggage, Francis calls Julia’s phone and hears it ringing next door. Francis goes out in the hallway to find Weber exiting Irina’s. The two men stare at each other. Having summoned enough strength to crawl to Irina’s gun, Julia suddenly shoots Weber dead.

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Review:

“Watcher” starts with a straightforward “stranger in a strange land” setup. Julia, a former actress who appears to have abandoned her own dreams so her husband Francis can pursue his, just moved to Romania. Francis has the heritage there, so he speaks the language, but Julia barely knows more than a few basic Romanian words. She can’t easily order a coffee. She gets screamed at by a security guard for trying to take a prohibited picture in a museum. A fish very much out of water, being left on her own in Bucharest quickly becomes a burden for her, and it’s about to become a burden for others, too.

Julia can’t shake her suspicion that a silhouette in a window across the street stares directly at her every night. Already unsettled by the mystery man, Julia’s unease finds more fuel when she learns about a serial killer called ‘The Spider.’ Someone has been capturing women in their bedrooms and cutting off their heads. One survivor describes feeling as though she was being stalked prior to the attacker trying to suffocate her from behind. Could Julia’s weird watcher be connected?

Even more so than any average thriller, “Watcher’s” distinct gender dynamics make it a movie that will have different fear factors for different viewers. Not only will that factor be directly influenced by whether you’re a man or a woman, it’ll be colored by perspectives from personal experiences too.

I was once in a group conversation where someone brought up an old Aziz Ansari routine, one that he would ultimately depict in an episode of “Master of None.” In his standup set, Ansari asked how many women in the audience had ever been made uncomfortable by an unknown man following them. Ansari then told the men to look around and observe that every woman had raised her hand. He then asked how many men knew that this regularly happened and the men were apparently dumbfounded.

I can already hear how this sounds like a “not all men” defense, but I countered that only a psycho would ever casually stalk someone through a store or on the street. Myself and others at the table then swapped stories about how we’d been on the other end in misinterpreted instances that were not stalking situations at all. We would receive a non-verbal cue such as a woman looking over her shoulder to let us know we were walking too close, and then we would do something like drop our keys or tie our shoes to hopefully put more space between us so they’d know we had no intention of causing any kind of harm.

Here’s my most extreme example. One late night after a long day in Hollywood, I’m walking down a somewhat dim stretch of Franklin Boulevard, a section unpopulated by people or traffic, back to my car. I walk fast when I’m by myself anyway, but it’s also a chilly October evening and I’m anxious to get home, so I’m moving at a hastened pace. It isn’t until I get that first over-the-shoulder glance that I see there’s a woman walking alone in front of me. She’s letting me know she’s wary, and I don’t blame her one bit considering all of the conditions, so I slow down. A moment passes and she shoots me a second look. Now I realize, I’m only a block away from my vehicle and it’s on this side of the street, but I’m clearly making this person uncomfortable by being too close behind her, so I should cross to the opposite sidewalk and maybe she’ll feel safer. No sooner do I step off the curb to cross, she has the exact same idea and steps into the street at the exact same time. I’m immediately mortified as I hop right back onto the curb, except she had that same idea too. Now it looks like I’m mimicking her movements and what was definitely not a legitimate stalking situation absolutely looks like one for sure. With my hopeless attempts to make this person feel better likely only heightening her anxiety, I did the tying my shoes trick to slow everything down. She turned at the next side street, which, luckily for me, was no longer the direction I was headed, although she kept a cautious eye on me as I mercifully made it to my car before unnecessarily frightening this woman any further.

What does this have to do with “Watcher?” For the woman in my story, who possibly went home that night wondering how close she came to being attacked because I have no idea if I ever adequately conveyed that coincidence was being unkind, Julia’s experience will feel frighteningly real, and frighteningly relatable. One thing “Watcher” director Chloe Okuno does incredibly well is to weave a texture of simmering uncertainty, and then pull threads out of that tapestry to curl into strings of suspense. Maika Monroe tenses her shoulders, wells tears in her eyes, and emotes Julia’s journey from frustration to fear with acute awareness for how her actions reactively complement what’s unfolding within a given scene. How the camera carefully cuts off what we can see and the suggestiveness of certain shadows then tighten intensity in consistently creative ways.

On the other hand, for someone like myself who has the luxury of not dealing with the daily discomfort of being alone in an overwhelming city, alone and inebriated in an Uber, or worrying whether or not a cop will believe my complaint about someone suspicious, “Watcher” doesn’t have the same impact. My side of my story allowed me to go home only traumatized by embarrassment for unintentionally inflicting distress on a stranger. And when you have that ability to detach from Julia’s fight to be validated and vindicated against incessant accusations of hysterical overreaction, it’s easier to see “Watcher’s” nagging structural shortcuts.

Divorced from any #MeToo timeliness about a woman’s voice struggling to be believed, “Watcher” as a pure thriller suffers from stale similarities to numerous like-minded movies. Disbelieving husband. Dismissive authority figure. How many times do we have to put up with a premise that asks the question, “Is this really happening or is it all in her head?” when by virtue of the fact that we’re watching a horror film, we already know the main character isn’t crazy?

Devil’s Advocate could argue that “Watcher” employs those aforementioned stereotypes purposefully. It’s saying these are real men, the violent ex-boyfriends and disparaging store managers who are encountered regularly, that make Julia’s dilemma that much more difficult.

I could buy into that idea if “Watcher” wasn’t stocked with so many other tropes too. Exposition gets added using the top two most popular narrative cheats possible: an internet research sequence and someone serendipitously tuning into a local TV news broadcast at precisely the right moment. When the middle of the movie needs a quick fake-out scare after nothing substantial happens for a while, it chooses a predictable “this is actually only a nightmare” pop. Then there’s the introduction of a firearm that has one of the most conspicuous close-ups in the entire cinematic history of Chekhov’s guns.

Those slices don’t cause “Watcher” to be killed by a thousand small cuts. Solid suspense breaks chains created by clichés. In addition to Maika Monroe making Julia read sympathetically almost purely through physicality, Burn Gorman nearly upstages her as the quiet creep across the street. His erect posture; his closed stance; the way he sits with his palms placed neatly on his knees. Dressed in a plain brown coat with a plan haircut to match, he’s a guy who’d be difficult to describe to a sketch artist because of how ordinary he looks, yet your neck hairs know to stand alertly whenever you’re in his intangibly menacing presence.

By maintaining that mood of indeterminate danger always looming over Julia, “Watcher” holds a strong enough stride to pull its boots up over boilerplate plot points. There is more to the movie than just Hitchcockian style however, although the message rings differently to different ears. Whether you hear that chime loud enough to get anything more than atmospheric chills out of “Watcher” probably depends on whether you tend to be in the front or in the back when two strangers walk alone on a dark street.

Review Score: 65

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