It Follows, Longlegs, Significant Other, The Guest... what do all of these excellent horror/thriller films have in common? They star Maika Monroe, a talented and hard-working actress who has been working pretty consistently in Hollywood since the early 2000s. However, it's only the last few years that Monroe has started to garner the recognition she's long deserved.
Most people are familiar with her movies It Follows and especially Longlegs, which became the highest-grossing indie movie of 2024 (and even had Oscar buzz at one point), but not as many have seen her incredible performance in the 2022 psychological thriller Watcher. Thankfully, that seems to be changing as the movie was just added to Netflix on Tuesday and moved to the third position on Netflix's Top 10 chart overnight.
Watcher was directed by Chloe Okuno, who also wrote the script (based on a story by Zack Ford). Okuno is a filmmaker to watch, as she also directed the "Storm Drain" segment of V/H/S/94. She'll soon work with Monroe again on the upcoming vampire horror movie Brides, which was snapped up by Neon. Monroe is also filming a sequel to It Follows.
Watcher is a chilling thriller that would have made Alfred Hitchcock proud
So, what is this must-watch film? It's a very Hitchcock-inspired movie about a woman who starts to suspect a man living across the street from her and her husband is stalking her.
Monroe plays the leading lady, Julia, who also happens to be an actress in-universe, though she struggled with her aspiration and opted to take a break. That's what leads her to Bucharest with her husband, Francis (Karl Glusman). When Francis lands a cushy new job, the couple pack up and move from the US to Romania's capital city. They find a nice apartment with a vast window overlooking the street below and from that window, Julia sees a man looking down into their apartment from the upper floor of the complex across the way.
Despite feeling unsettled by what she perceives as a silent observer, Francis brushes off her concerns. To make matters worse, not long after the couple arrives in town, they stumble upon a crime scene for the latest victim of a serial killer known as "The Spider." Understandably, this makes Julia nervous and she starts to feel increasingly ill at ease in her own home, especially when she starts seeing the same man everywhere she goes.
Watcher doesn't necessarily do anything new or groundbreaking with its thriller format, but it is Okuno's direction and the central performances, particularly from Monroe and Burn Gorman, that make it stand out. One particular scene toward the end is a simple conversation between two characters, but thanks to the skillful camera work and acting, it becomes one of the tensest and most suspenseful scenes I've seen in a thriller in some time.
Watcher takes inspiration from other classic films like Rear Window, Rosemary's Baby, and even Lost in Translation, combining different elements to create a stomach-knotting watch adept at making the viewer feel the same paranoia tormenting the film's protagonist.