During that well-known run of movies from the late 70s to late 80s, John Carpenter made so many stone-cold classics, cult classics, and popular culture touchstones that it appears legal he’s not revered in the identical method a Spielberg or Scorcese are. Even when working beneath studio restrictions at the moment, he might nonetheless squeeze some good juice out of something.
He was fairly the busy bee placing out a number of motion pictures in a short while span. While most discovered their house to breathe and change into revered Carpenter movies in their very own proper, others had been much less lucky (Carpenter directed Kurt Russell in an Elvis biopic, and it’s bizarre that’s not an even bigger deal). Halloween noticed his standing develop massively when it was launched in 1978, as an example, nevertheless it dwarfed his different horror film that yr.
It’s not fully unfair that Someone’s Watching Me! is ignored in comparison with its fellow 45-year-old Carpenter sibling. It’s a TV film that’s nowhere close to as simple to come up with (my very own copy is a Spanish import) as Halloween, and it suffers from the made-for-TV dilution and comparable ladies being stalked themes.
But Someone’s Watching Me! makes for an fascinating companion piece not solely to Halloween, however to Carpenter’s most up-to-date directorial effort for his Suburban Screams tv present. It sees a lady named Leigh (Lauren Hutton) transfer right into a high-rise residence constructing, seemingly needing a contemporary begin. Things start fairly effectively in her new residence, however an more and more obtrusive stalking presence invades her life, and no person desires to consider her. So, she takes issues into her personal palms.
It’s pretty tame on the violence entrance, however Carpenter manages to wring pressure and unease out of the movie with loads of Hitchcock by means of De Palma-style visible work. The stalker seems to find out about Leigh’s actions with unnatural accuracy, which leads Leigh to view each place as a possible hazard, however leaving sufficient preliminary doubt about how shut this stalker really is till they get tremendous assured in not being rumbled by any exterior forces. There’s a deliciously mocking scene the place the stalker makes it clear simply how shut they’re with a pointed message inside Leigh’s residence.
Exasperated by a scarcity of assist, Leigh accepts that she should tackle her hidden foe, and Lauren Hutton’s already robust efficiency goes up a stage as she defiantly turns the tables on her oppressor.
Hutton elevates the movie past normal tv fare. When in comparison with the younger, naive Laurie Strode, she’s a bit extra streetwise, has much more persona, and doesn’t really feel fully consumed by the style trappings she finds herself in. The distinction is it’s implied Leigh is already a survivor of some horrifying state of affairs earlier than she even moved to the excessive rise. So there’s a particular edge to her defiance and anger within the finale.
Despite this, it’s undeniably tough to shake the sensation Someone’s Watching Me! might have been one thing better if it wasn’t held by televisual restraints. Sure, it might seemingly nonetheless must go up in opposition to Halloween, however it might maybe have been capable of faucet into a good darker facet in addition to being extra available for horror followers to understand.
