FilmSnobReviews

Title: Watcher
MPAA Rating: Not Yet Rated
Director: Chloe Okuno
Starring: Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins

What It Is: When young woman Julie (Monroe) moves to Romania with her fiance Francis (Glusman) she begins to get a suspicion that she’s being stalked by an unknown person…or entity. As her paranoia begins to take over is she simply out of her mind or could she be right? Is there someone lurking in the shadows and in the dark corners of this unfamiliar (to her) country? Perhaps the things going bump in the night or in her own mind.

What We Think: Maika Monroe continues to prove she’s something of a low-key scream queen. She has been in several excellent horror and suspense films in her career thus far. This is not one of those excellent horror/suspense films. This one instead suffers from deliberate pacing that hurts the overall narrative. An atmosphere that isn’t quite what I wanted out of a script like this. For her part, Monroe is very good. The problem is no one is in the movie feels like they belong there. The third act is something of a predictable slog and isn’t really worth the time you spent to get to the finish.

Our Grade: C-, An overall disappointing film that is an underwhelming feature debut for Chloe Okuno. Her short Slut gives hope that she’ll figure it out and deliver more of that and a little less of this. Come for Maika Monroe’s performance…but there’s really no reason to stay. Films like Master and Resurrection from the exact same festival do what this wants…but better. That said if you’re a fan of Monroe or thrillers in general I would point you in this film’s direction. If you’re on the fence either stay there or don’t really bother. You aren’t missing much.