It Follows star Maika Monroe still has no luck when it comes to a sense of being followed in Chloe Okuno‘s paranoid thriller at Sundance. Watcher sees a young woman moves into a new apartment with her fiancé only to be tormented by the feeling that she is being stalked by an unseen watcher in an adjacent building.
Okuno and writer Zack Ford waste no time in setting up Julia (Monroe)’s isolation and paranoia. An American just arrived in Romania, she is tired, suffering from jet lag and left to her own devices while her fiancé is at work. To make matters worse, her imagination begins to run wild when they discover that women in the city are being attacked by a mysterious stalker.
To put the audience in Julia’s shoes, the Romanian dialogue is not subtitled. Increasing her and our sense of confusion and isolation.
With nothing to do except stare out the window, things start to get a bit Rear Window. Is she being watched by someone across the street? Or is she actually the one watching them?
The cracks in her mental state begin to fracture when no one takes her suspicions seriously. Not the neighbours in her apartment, the police or even her own partner. Exacerbated by her need for him to translate for her. Is he relaying everything correctly and is he telling the truth?
There are hints that this might not be the first brush she has had with a stalker. It is revealed she used to be an actress but left it behind because it “wasn’t for her”. Was she being stalked and harassed?
Maika Monrow delivers an excellent and engaging performance that draws the audience in. Coupled with assured direction by Okuno and an evocative score by Nathan Halpern, it does enough to keep the viewers second guessing what is real and what is in her mind up to the very end.
Drawing on European films like Hitchcock’s Gaslight (yep, that’s where the term comes from) and Polanski’s The Tenant, Watcher is a taut, tense and immensely watchable thriller. Plus that last shot is one for the ages.
Watcher screens at this year’s Sundance Film Festival
Rating: 
Director: Chloe Okuno
Stars: Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman
Runtime: 91 minutes
Country: USA
