Watcher is a new film that just arrived on Vudu recently and I rented to give it a watch. The topic of the film intrigued me and I had seen it in the theaters for a few weeks before coming on Vudu.

The film is a psychological thriller directed by Chloe Okuno based on an original screenplay by Zack Ford.

Julia (Maika Monroe) and her husband Francis (Karl Glusman) moved to Bucharest for his job. They seemed to have a happy marriage and their apartment was very nice. However, it was not long after they moved in that Julia began to suspect that a neighbor at the building across form theirs had been watching her from his window. When a murder happened in the neighborhood, Julia’s suspicions became all the more intense, bordering on paranoid.

Francis started off as supportive, but he was not seeing the same problems that Julia was. Julia’s next door neighbor Irina (Madalina Anea) gave her some support and comfort, but she did not see any changes in the man watching her. She continued to be afraid of the man and worried about what he might do.

The film has some really strong atmosphere, filled with tension and an uncertainty of what truly was happening. It was nicely shot and set a mood for the film.

I do have to say that the old horror trope of the person who no one believes is overused. Why can’t the husband have just believed Julia about the situation? I mean, he was somewhat supportive, but he still had that aura of thinking that there was another answer to what was happening. There seemed to be better things happen when you just believe your spouse. The film did not give us any real reason to why he wouldn’t have believed what she was saying.

This was a decent horror/thriller that was engaging on a rainy Saturday morning. It may not be the best horror film of the year, but it was solid.

3.5 stars