An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at the Shudder exclusive, 2022’s Watcher
After married couple Julia (Maika Monroe) and Francis move to Bucharest, a stranger constantly watches Julia from a neighboring building and the stranger might be more deadly than he appears.
Is it Scary?
Watcher will have your heart pounding. While there aren’t many jump scares besides a couple of effective ones, you will be tense throughout because it’s basically Anxiety: The Movie. In the end, Watcher might leave you a bit scared especially if you often get the feeling that you’re being watched.
Detailed Plot:
The film opens with our main characters, married couple Julia and Francis (played by Maika Monroe and Karl Glusman respectively) arriving in Bucharest, Romania, and entering their new fully furnished apartment. We quickly learn that while Francis is proficient in Romanian, Julia doesn’t speak it, and the move was due to Francis’s new job.
After their landlord leaves, the two proceed to have sex in front of an open window. I’m not talking about a small bedroom window, this is in front of the main living room window… Get some curtains first.
Later that night, Julia wakes up, looks out the window, and does some people watching of the tenants in the building next door. On the floor above, she spots the silhouette of a man who appears to be staring back at her.
Francis calls her back to bed and she decides to not tell him about the staring man, probably because she was literally doing the same thing so it’s not that creepy… yet. The following morning, Julia is unpacking and practicing Romanian when she hears banging coming from next door but also hears a woman laughing.
We next see a few scenes happening over the course of a few days with Julia exploring the town including going to a cafe, a museum, and buying a small Dracula statue. In between these quick scenes we also see Julia staring ominously at the building across from hers and, while laying in bed, sees the man possibly staring into her apartment.
Arriving back at the apartment Julia finds the door open and sees a man standing in the dark. In a jump scare, the landlord pops out from behind the man and explains, in Romanian, that he was fixing a broken light in the apartment.
Though Julia doesn’t fully understand, she gets it from context clues. Unfortunately, this means she couldn’t ask why the fuck the maintenance man was standing ominously in the dark for no reason if he had just fixed the light.
Later while waiting for Francies to arrive home, Julia looks out the window and sees the man staring into her apartment again. Why hasn’t she invested in curtains yet? Shhh. Francis arrives home and the two go out for a walk where they stumble upon a group of people watching police and EMTs enter a building. Francis asks the other onlookers what happened but no one seems to know.
The next day while watching the convenient news, they find out the police were there after someone found the body of a missing woman. This unsettles Julia enough to where she finally tells Francis about the stranger constantly staring into their apartment and at Julia.
Later, the two host one of Francis’s co-workers and their wife for dinner and you know what that means; it’s exposition time.
We learn Julia is an ex-smoker and a former actress though we don’t know to what extent. Francis’s co-worker also fills them in on the woman whose body was found. She appears to be the latest victim of a serial killer known as “The Spider” who kills women by cutting their throats. The latest victim, he cut so deep, he essentially decapitated her.
While taking out the trash, Julia meets their neighbor Irina (played by Madalina Anea) who can speak pretty good English so Julia has a new friend now. The following day at the cafe, Julia plays a video of one of The Spider’s victims who survived an attack after he cut her throat but didn’t cut deep enough.
It’s not clear if he thought she was dead but the woman in the video says he watched her bleeding out for what felt like hours. Also, Julia watches the video on her computer in a cafe, where there are other people, with the volume on full blast and no headphones, so I don’t know what the bigger crime is.
The woman in the video also says she believes the killer was watching her for some time before the attack and always felt like there was someone following her or behind her at all times. This clearly unsettles Julia more and while walking even gets jumpy when a man walks by her.
To relax, Julia heads to a small movie theater and watches a movie in a pretty empty auditorium with about 4 others. As she watches the film, someone comes and sits directly behind her which is already a cardinal sin. The extremely unnerved Julia looks slightly behind her and sees his brown shoes.
The man then leans closer to her and we hear his deep breaths as Julia shits bricks as any normal person would do.
Julia runs out of the theater and heads for a grocery store. The stress of the incident causes her to almost buy a pack of cigarettes but instead decides to just buy some groceries. While in the produce section, she spots someone looking at her and immediately believes it to be the same man from the theater.
While walking through several aisles to check if he actually is following her (he is) she notices his shoes and confirms it’s the same man. After accidentally bumping and breaking some pickles she runs into the employee section of the store and tries to get a good look at the stalker’s face. Unfortunately, she’s interrupted by a worker and she runs out of a backdoor.
Later, as Francis eats dinner he realizes something is wrong and Julia tells him about the events of her day, also they finally have curtains. While she does mention the movie theater, she leaves out the most important detail of the guy literally breathing on her. Francis tries to make her feel better and they decide to go back to the grocery store to view the camera footage.
At the store, they find the worker who saw Julia and after telling him she wasn’t trying to steal, he agrees to show them the camera footage. After reviewing the footage Francis tries to dissuade Julia saying maybe the guy was just staring at the woman who was staring at him. What kind of bullshit is this?
Julia takes a photo of the guy but it’s pretty grainy footage so I’m not sure what she’ll accomplish with it. The next day in contrast to her first few days in Bucharest, Julia stays inside and in the dark. At night, while Francis is staying late at work, Julia looks out the window and for the first time, doesn’t see the man staring back.
Rapid knocking from the hallway catches her attention and she jumps when the knocker bangs on her door. This turns out to be a neighbor looking for her cat. Luckily, Irina appears and translates, she then invites Julia inside for a drink.
As the two bond, we learn that Julia is learning Romanian in secret as a surprise for Francis. The two are interrupted when Irena gets a visit from an angry ex-boyfriend but she sends him away.
She tells Julia that although he comes off as aggressive, he’s actually very sweet and even bought her a gun to defend herself. If gifting a loaded weapon is the definition of ‘sweet’ then Valentine’s day is about to get way more interesting.
Julia doesn’t believe the gun claim but Irina shows her that it’s in her coffee table drawer.
Returning back to her apartment, Julia checks out the window and sees the silhouette of the man looking back at her. Due to being a bit drunk, Julia tells herself the man isn’t actually looking at her apartment and decides to test it out. Opening up her curtains, she cautiously waves and the silhouette doesn’t wave back.
I’m pretty sure the man in the window then remembers that the movie still has to continue so he finally waves back and this freaks Julia out. We cut to a bit later with Francis arriving home and finding a smoking Julia on the bed.
She tells him the man waved which proves he has been staring at her this entire time. Angry, Francis goes to the window but doesn’t see anyone at the window, regardless he still gives him the finger, so he’s going to die.
Julia decides to call the cops and we cut to a bit later with a cop there questioning them. For some freaking reason, Julia once again doesn’t mention that the guy LEANED IN AND BREATHED on her in the movie theater. She also tells the cop that she thinks the guy from the grocery store was the same guy at the movie theater.
The cop is a bit incredulous at the claims but concedes that a man constantly staring at them through the window is rude and decides to go over and talk to him. He offers to take Julia with him but she declines though Francis decides to go. So they’re totally dead.
A short time later Francis returns and essentially confirms the guy who has been staring at Julia this entire time, is the same guy from the grocery surveillance cameras.
Despite the confirmation, Francis still tries to convince Julia that maybe it was all a coincidence and Julia rightly flips out on him. Sure, the guy being at the grocery store might be a coincidence but the same guy sitting directly behind her in an empty movie theater, and breathing on her, feels like it should elevate this from ‘coincidence’ to ‘maybe we got a fucking problem here’.
The next day while purchasing a newspaper because apparently, Bucharest doesn’t have internet all of a sudden, Julia spots her stalker heading toward the train station. She then decides to become the stalker and follows him… for a really long time.
You can tell it’s a really long time because she watches him go to a restaurant, sit down for a meal, and she’s still watching him when he’s done. WTF Julia.
Julia continues to follow him down a shady-looking alleyway that I can guarantee someone’s been murdered in and follows him down some stairs leading to a strip club. Turns out her stalker works at the club as a janitor.
Julia wanders around looking for him and finally spots him but hides before he sees her. It’s at this point we realize that Julia doesn’t have a plan here and is just aimlessly following the guy she presumes to be a danger so she’s not the best planner. One of the dancers gets Julia’s attention and reveals herself to be Irina!
The two sit in the back and talk with Julia asking about the janitor. Irina tells her the workers there come and go often and she doesn’t pay attention to them. Julia asks if maybe the man has been watching Irina as well but Irina shrugs it off as she’s used to men watching her. Irina is then called back to work and promises to look after Julia.
That night since Francis is away on a business trip, Julia barricades the front door with a chair and tries to relax. After watching some videos in Romanian (she’s learning) she puts her laptop away but when she returns to the bedroom she sees one of the pillows is missing its pillowcase.
In a jumpscare, she’s attacked by a stranger who throws the pillowcase over her head and begins to strangle her. This turns out to be a nightmare but becoming worried about Irina, she knocks on the connecting wall and calls out to her. Hearing Irina’s muffled screams, Julia runs to her door and starts banging on it.
Hearing Julia banging on Irina’s door, some neighbors get the landlord who agrees to open the door. Investigating the apartment, they don’t find Irina but they do find the cat belonging to the neighbor from earlier. Julia looks ominously towards the closet that is slightly ajar but no one investigates it for some reason.
The next day the landlord complains to Francis about Julia and Francis apologizes to Julia for being at work so much. He tells her he has a short day but that if she’s still up for it they’ve been invited for some fancy cocktails later that night. Julia agrees to go and Francis heads to work.
Immediately Julia calls Irina’s work looking for her but is told she hasn’t shown up. Hearing some knocking from the hallway, Julia finds Irina’s ex-boyfriend, Christian (played by Daniel Nuta) also looking for her. Christian tells her they were supposed to meet up after Irina got out of work but she never showed. Julia calls Irina and the two hear her phone ringing inside her apartment.
Christian assumes this means Irina is purposely ignoring him despite the fact that it was Julia that called but whatever. He decides to leave but Julia instead asks him for a favor and tells him about her stalker. The two head over to the stalker’s apartment and Julia watches as Christian bangs on the door.
Although Christian hears someone in the apartment, no one answers the door. He then gets a phone call and has to leave.
After he leaves, Julia decides to knock on the door and finally, someone opens but instead of her stalker, it’s an elderly confused man. Julia apologizes and leaves but while waiting for the elevator, her stalker appears walking up the stairs. As she gets on the elevator, the stalker stands at the door and stares at her.
Later as Julia and Francis are getting dressed for their fancy cocktails, the cop from earlier and the stalker whose name is Daniel Weber (played by Burn Gorman) arrive. The cop tells Julia and Francis that Daniel called the police to complain about a woman who has been stalking him, (that’s fair) and harassed his father earlier (that’s also true).
Putting two and two together the cop brought Daniel over to put the whole thing behind them as a misunderstanding.
Daniel puts out his hand and a tense Julia shakes his hand. After they leave, Francis shows Julia a news article where the police confirm The Spider has been arrested. I assume this was Francis’s attempt to help Julia feel safer but, it’s also a weird time to remind someone that serial killers targetting young women in the neighborhood is still totally a thing.
The two arrive at their fancy cocktail party and the big news that everyone is talking about is the capture of The Spider. One of Francis’s coworkers reveals that Francis has told them about Julia’s stalker problem and since they say it in a joking manner, it comes off as demeaning.
The group starts speaking in Romanian and joking about The Spider with everyone laughing when Francis makes a joke. Turns out the joke is about The Spider keeping Julia company which Julia reveals to have understood since she was secretly teaching herself Romanian. Surprise!
Furious, Julia leaves the party and Francis follows after her. The two argue about the joke and Francis says he doesn’t know what to do anymore. He then calls her belief of having a stalker a ‘fucking fantasy’ and walks away.
What a dick, but also this might be a good time for Julia to reveal the stalker breathed on her in the movie theater after sitting directly behind her? Deciding to head home, Julia heads to the train station and after a train-arriving jump scare, she hops on. Guess who is on it as well?
In a subdued panic, Julia gets ready to get off at the next stop but the train stops due to a delay. After sitting back down, Daniel walks over with a plastic bag and sits across from her. He tells her that the delay is most likely due to an animal on the tracks.
Julia finally asks why he’s following her and at first, Daniel tries to play it off saying he doesn’t control the trains, but he then comes clean. He tells her he spends most of his days looking after his sick father and often looks out the window.
Over time he started to fantasize about seeing a pretty woman who notices him and knew it was a sad hobby but, one day Julia waved at him.
He assumed she was being friendly but then Francis showed up with the police. This caused Daniel to believe that Julia was trying to embarrass him in some way and he decided to call the police. After their involvement, he still didn’t feel things were right and now wants an apology.
While Daniel is monologing all of this, Julia’s attention has been drawn to the plastic bag next to him and the camera spends an awfully long time looking at it.
The train starts to move and a terrified Julia blurts out a ‘sorry’ before running off the train leaving Daniel on it. Back at home, Julia starts to pack her things and hears music coming from Irina’s apartment. Going over to knock, she doesn’t get a response but finds the door unlocked.
Walking in and looking around, she finds Irina’s decapitated body as Daniel attacks her from behind and throws a plastic bag over her head. Julia wakes up a short time later and Daniel tells her not to scream which she immediately does. Putting a knife to her neck, he reveals he is The Spider and he actually was in the closet days earlier when Julia and the neighbors entered looking for Irina.
Hearing sounds coming from upstairs, Julia attempts to scream again but Daniel slices her neck. Meanwhile, Francis arrives home and sees Julia was packing her bags. Back with Julia, she’s now bleeding out and slowly crawling on the floor toward the coffee table. Behind her, Daniel watches presumably unaware that there’s a gun in the drawer.
A few feet away from the coffee table, Julia lays on the ground and dies. Daniel lies next to her and watches as her final breaths leave her body. I’m extremely shocked they decided to kill her off… unless this is a fakeout…
As Daniel gets up, he spots a child watching him from the building next door and quickly goes to clean the blood off his hands. Meanwhile, Francis calls Julia’s phone and hears it coming from Irina’s apartment. Walking out into the hallway he sees Daniel exiting Irina’s apartment and realizes something is going on.
He starts to run towards him but stops when Daniel is shot in the shoulder from behind. Turning around, he’s shot again and dies as we see a still alive Julia is the shooter. The film ends as Julia steps out of the apartment and looks over toward Francis.
So What Happened in the End?
The biggest question at the end is, how the hell is Julia still alive? Since the movie ends immediately after Daniel’s death we don’t get a lot of answers but re-watching the scene we see that Daniel didn’t cut very deep. Had Daniel cut an artery, the amount of blood from the moment the cut happened would have been a hell of a lot more.
We also see that when Julia is crawling to the coffee table, she’s holding the wound and no blood is dripping out from under her hand. As we pan out, she’s not even leaving a blood trail. It’s only when she lets go and lays down that the blood seeps out. Had the cut been deep enough to kill her, the blood would have poured out regardless if she was holding it.
The most likely scenario is Julia was pooling some of the blood in her hand and then used her acting skills, as we learned she used to be an actress, to fake her death. She then got lucky that a child witnessed Daniel from across the buildings forcing him to skip the decapitation step and rush when cleaning off his bloody hands.
Finally, after Julia kills Daniel and she stands at the door, her wound doesn’t appear to be bleeding, further proving the cut wasn’t that deep.
We also know from the video Julia watched, that Daniel has unknowingly left a survivor when he didn’t cut their neck deep enough. So Daniel has made the mistake before of believing he killed a victim and leaving them for dead, it’s not a stretch that the same thing happened here.
The “mistake” the film makes is showing all that blood on the back of Julia’s dress since that gives off the impression that she bled a lot more than she actually did. Prior to her crawling on the ground we get a brief glimpse and we see no blood on the back of her dress but when we cut back to her crawling, she has a lot more blood.
Review:
Watcher is great and the number one reason is Maika Monroe’s acting. Her facial expressions and mannerisms as the movie progresses whenever she gets paranoid and anxious are perfect. The film also does an excellent job at portraying the anxiety of the feeling that someone might be watching you. That along with Maika’s acting makes it incredibly easy for the audience to put themselves in her shoes.
Overall the story works and it does a great job at making the audience somewhat question if the stalking is all in Julia’s head. The fun thing is the movie only subtly hints at the whole thing being imagined until Francis calls it a fantasy towards the end. Of course, it does turn out to be real but if the director/writer decided to change the ending to ‘it was all in her head’, very little would have to change to make that work. In a movie about anxiety and paranoia, that kind of possibility is a plus.
The dialogue, for the most part, works and feels believable. My only small gripe is the fact that Julia never tells anyone that Daniel leaned in towards her and breathe on her in the movie theater. That feels like a pretty big thing that can’t be chalked up to a coincidence yet Julia never mentions it.
Now while Watcher is great, it still does have some negatives. Mainly we are told pretty much nothing about the main characters, Julia is immediately thrown into the stalking situation so we don’t know what she’s like when she’s not on high alert. We also don’t know if she’s always been paranoid or if this is a first. We know nothing about her past besides she used to be an actress. We know even less about Francis.
The movie is also a bit predictable at times because it hits all the tropes of stalker movies, you know Julia won’t mention the guy watching from the window immediately, you know Francis won’t believe her at first, you know they’re going to end up fighting, etc.
Another negative is Julia’s poor decisions, some of which feel like they only happened to keep the movie-going. The first is stalking Daniel for such a long time and then following him to the strip club. She literally has no plan and if it hadn’t been for Irina, what would she have done?
The next weird decision is when Julia and the neighbors investigate Irina’s apartment. Julia suspects someone is in the closet, looks towards it, and does nothing? She has about 8 neighbors with her that could have helped and been witnesses, why not at least peek into the closet?
Francis is also pretty bad at making decisions, he appears to swing from supportive to not believing a thing Julia says without reason. Especially after confirming that the guy who has been staring at Julia is the same guy who is stalking her, he still thinks it’s just a coincidence?
Overall Watcher is great and I highly recommend it to those who like slow burn anxiety-inducing movies that have you questioning what is going on. If you only like fast-paced, jump-scare-filled slashers (nothing wrong with that) this might not be for you.
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