Watcher

"Evil wants to be seen."

2022 1h 36m EN

👍

6.5

SOLID

★6.5TMDB · 1,232

HorrorMysteryThriller

Synopsis

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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.

“Evil wants to be seen.”

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Cast

Maika Monroe
Julia
Karl Glusman
Francis
Burn Gorman
Watcher
Mãdãlina Anea
Irina
Gabriela Butuc
Flavia
Cristina Deleanu
Eleonora
Ștefan Iancu
Sebastian
Florian Ghimpu
Officer Radu

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Chloe Okuno
Writers: Chloe Okuno, Zack Ford
Languages: English, Romanian
Countries: United Arab Emirates, United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Earned back only 72% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 4 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 2 languages: English, Romanian.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: United Arab Emirates, United States of America.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Chloe Okuno, shot by Benjamin Kirk Nielsen. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Nathan Halpern. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Michael Block shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Maika Monroe and Karl Glusman and Burn Gorman carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Chloe Okuno directs. Benjamin Kirk Nielsen behind the camera. Nathan Halpern scores. Michael Block cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. A commercial under-performer on release. Produced in United Arab Emirates, United States of America. Dialogue in English, Romanian.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Earned back only 72% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.
2Released 4 years ago.
3Dialogue crosses 2 languages: English, Romanian.
4International production across 2 countries: United Arab Emirates, United States of America.
5Directed by Chloe Okuno, shot by Benjamin Kirk Nielsen. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by Nathan Halpern. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Michael Block shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Maika Monroe and Karl Glusman and Burn Gorman carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "Evil wants to be seen.".
10IMDB entry: tt12004038 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 13 themes, including "husband wife relationship", "window", "paranoia", "language barrier".

The technical file

Cinematography: Benjamin Kirk Nielsen
Original score: Nathan Halpern
Editing: Michael Block
Production design: Nora Dumitrescu
Costume design: Claudia Bunea
Makeup / hair: Elena Tudor
Sound: Frédéric Dubois
Stunt coordinator: Razvan Gheorghiu
Runtime: 96 min · 1h 36m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $5,000,000
Box office: $3,621,656
Return: 72% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Watcher (2022)

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Chloe Okuno

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Community reviews

What people are saying

The Movie Mob2022-09-15
★ 6/10
Watcher's pace can sometimes feel haphazard or arbitrary, but the strong finale makes it all worthwhile. The Watcher builds slowly, spending plenty of time emphasizing the main character's isolation and loneliness. Each passing moment of this slow burn accentuates the paranoia of being watched. Maika Monroe proves her horror chops once again with Watcher, as she has before with movies like It Follows and The Guest. I wanted to give this movie a better rating than 3/5 but the gradual crawling pace of the film, although intentional and effective in creating tension, had me looking at my phone out of bordem. The last 20 minutes of the movie are intense and pay off nicely, though, and make it worth hanging around until the end. As a horror fan, I enjoyed Watcher and would recommend giving it a shot, but don't set your expectations high.
Nathan2022-10-25
★ 7/10
Watcher is a tense movie that does a great job building atmosphere and suspense, but that slow build is also to its detriment. As a horror fan, I am much more interested in movies that deliver intense tension leaving audiences at the edge of their seat. While this movie does attempt to deliver on that premise, it does so in a way that is incredibly long and dragged out. By the time the movie really had me hooked, it would cut away to a different scene and completely ruin any resemblance of momentum it had going for it. This results in a very uneven viewing experience that left me bored more often than not. The performance by Maika Monroe was brilliant and she does such an excellent job of portraying loneliness throughout the film. Even though she was surrounded by her husband and friends the sense of isolation this movie and Monroe builds is entrapping. The audience can genuinely empathies with her, creating a wonderful protagonist to root for. Despite the uneven story and the slowness of the entire film, the ending did leave me incredibly satisfied. This film is one that I appreciated the premise and the attempted delivery over enjoying the film as an experience, which tacks on an additional half a star to my rating. Score: 69% | Verdict: Good
CinemaSerf2022-11-09
★ 7/10
"Julia" (Maika Monroe) and her husband "Francis" (Karl Glusman) relocate from New York to his native Romania so he can take up a job in Bucharest. She has not a word of the native language, and so is pretty much on the back foot from the start as he goes to work each day leaving her to fend for herself. It's when she is looking out of their window one evening that she thinks she spots someone staring back at her. She waves, it waves back... What's going on? Is it just a bored next door neighbour or is something more dastardly afoot? Things become more sister for her when, returning home one night with her husband, she learns of the gruesome murder of a young woman nearby. Chloe Okuno does a decent job at creating and sustaining a certain sense of menace here. It's added by a decent script and a solid effort from Monroe as the increasingly paranoid woman who may be in great danger, or who may just have a very vivid imagination! I wasn't mad on the ending - it very nearly worked but I felt it hadn't quite the courage of what would have been a far more fitting conviction. It's not a great film, no - but it uses our imagination to do much of the work here and at times is really quite effective and certainly it is a bit different from a psychological perspective.