Fantastic!
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
View MoreIf you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
View MoreThere are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
View MoreReferred as "the lost Carpenter film" for many years, John Carpenter's Someone's Watching Me! still remains one of his least watched directorial efforts. A made-for-TV horror that delivers more thrills than most horror films of today, the film features a very simple premise & setting but is tense, gripping & suspenseful throughout its runtime. A must for John Carpenter fans. A must for horror & suspense enthusiasts.
View MoreBefore his big breakthrough with "Halloween," John Carpenter took a paycheck from NBC, pumping out this nearly-forgotten TV-movie, "Someone's Watching Me!" (exclamation mark is part of its title, and is neither a stylistic choice or an indication of over-enthusiasm on this writer's part). Starring Lauren Hutton as the "Me!" being watched, the film is admittedly limited in scope, being that it was created for network television with advertisers in mind. As a John Carpenter affair, though, it serves as a rather engaging sandbox for the director to flex his muscles before ultimately conquering both the horror genre and independent cinema alike. The long tracking shots, the deceptively simple yet complex camera tricks, the mounting tension -- just about everything you associate with vintage Carpenter can be found here, albeit in a somewhat neutered fashion.Leigh Michaels (Hutton) has just moved to L.A. and is looking to start her life over again. All seems to be going to plan, as she finds a job working in television almost instantly, befriends a spunky co-worker (Adrienne Barbeau) and wins the affections of a charming fellow bar-patron (David Birney). Unfortunately, some creep in the high- rise apartment across from her has taken a liking to her, stalking her from both near and afar, and sending threatening phone calls that are just vague enough so that the local authorities (Charles Cyphers) can't do much about them. Being the self- sufficient scrapper with a heart of gold (and biting sense of humor to boot) that she is, Leigh takes matters into her own hands and faces the creeper head-on in what turns out to be a rather tense (and vertigo-inducing) showdown.Lauren Hutton is both the star and the best part of the movie. Her character is so well-written and down-to-earth, and Hutton brings it to life with such natural ease, that you feel like you know this person already. This of course makes it all the easier to sympathize and get wrapped up into her plight. It helps, of course, that she is directed by someone like Carpenter, who cares as much about his characters as he does about milking the suspense of any given situation. It's not his flashiest film, and heck, he didn't even get to score it himself, but there's a certain element of class that Carpenter brings to the table that makes you forgot you're watching a made-for-TV movie. Also of note: Carpenter was clearly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" and that fact oozes into more than a few corners of the film. The film almost plays like a reversal of said film, but regrettably "Front Window" wouldn't have been a very catchy title. "Someone's Watching Me!" may not have a great title or much of a reputation, but it is definitely of interest to lovers of good suspense and John Carpenter alike.
View MoreBeautiful, plucky woman, 29 and single after a bad breakup, has relocated to Los Angeles from New York City, where she finds a terrific apartment in a high-rise complex and practically walks into a job as director for a TV station. The trouble is, she has attracted a stalker, who seems to have complete access to her life. After receiving presents, scary notes and endless crank calls, she starts to crack. John Carpenter wrote and directed this well-regarded TV-movie, which was televised in late November 1978, one month after Carpenter's breakthrough hit "Halloween" hit theaters. The far-fetched plot doesn't bear close scrutiny, but Carpenter's flip dialogue (our heroine likes to talk to herself) and arty touches are fun, as are the performances. In the lead, Lauren Hutton's demeanor takes a few minutes getting accustomed to; she's outgoing in an odd, somewhat artificial way, but she's fast on her feet and she's resourceful. Even better are David Birney as a professor Hutton picks up in a bar and Adrienne Barbeau as Hutton's co-worker (she's a lesbian, though the word is never spoken). The finale is a little lax (mild due to the medium), but Carpenter knows how to create suspense, even if that means scaring the audience at the risk of all logic and credibility.
View MoreI have been a huge fan of EARLY John Carpenter ever since I was a kid. From the absolute awesomeness of Halloween, the grungy thrills of Assault on Precinct 13, the intense paranoia and pessimism of The Thing to the sheer junk heaven of Big Trouble in Little China, his early films are sheer cinema bliss. So when I recently saw that Someone's Watching Me, a TV movie he made right before Halloween, had been finally released on DVD a couple of years ago, I raced out to get it. The film stars Lauren Hutton as a young woman who moves to Los Angeles and finds a job at a local TV station. She moves into a high-end, high-rise apartment building that faces another high-rise. Soon after moving in she is stalked by someone in the other apartment building, although she is initially unaware that anything is amiss. Alright, I admit that this story outline makes this sound like a lame direct-to-DVD potboiler, but the fun in the film comes from its less predictable, even bizarre elements. First off, Hutton's character is really unlike any other main character I've seen; a real goofball, she happily chatters away to herself walking down the halls of her apartment building and makes jokes that other characters don't get or that cause them to squirm. The strange way in which she is stalked, which involves a series of gifts sent by a fictional travel agency asking her to guess the destination of her prize trip so that she can win it, also adds to its unpredictability. I also adore the scene where Hutton, sitting by herself in her car, is approached by a man who leans in and says "It's a hell of a life, isn't it?" then stumbles away, never to be seen again. Sadly the plausibility starts to take a steep dive in the final scenes as the inevitable confrontation is nothing you haven't seen a million times in many other movies. Still, I found the movie highly entertaining (enough that I watched it a second time the next night, something I never do).
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