As a serial killer stalks the city, Julia — a young actress who just moved to town with her husband — notices a mysterious stranger watching her from across the street.
[Okuno’s] made a smart, controlled movie of pricks and gestures and tones that accumulate into a satisfying catharsis. And perhaps validated the urge to follow your gut.
In a genre movie climate marked by cheap thrills and easy scares — whatever gets us not to click on something else — it’s nice to see a film that sustains a strong ambiance of dread simply via someone looking out the window and shopping for groceries.
Watcher, if it has an agenda beyond being a fun, shivery, fish-out-of-water chiller, is not so much a manifesto to Believe All Women as it is a reminder to all women watching to at least believe ourselves.