Someone's Watching Me! (1978; John Carpenter)

While I’m perfectly satisfied with the synopses and overall thoughts and opinion piece written back in 2011 for my IMDb account, I did want to interject something here for the 2019 viewing. It has been 8 years so it was cool to revisit this for a third time. The first time I watched this least known Carpenter film, sort of a preparation for Halloween (1978; made just shortly after this film) and not long after his indie masterpiece, Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), it was through Netflix DVD mail. I was so excited. I remember the feeling of finally seeing the “one that has eluded me” of Carpenter’s résumé, sandwiched between arguably his two best films (okay, The Thing (1982); can’t leave that out, but every Carpenter fan has their own pick), with it arriving that October in, I think if I recall correctly, 2008. I might be off a year before or after 2008, but that is about when it was. Hutton is sure a natural charmer, and her approaching the philosophy professor, Paul, in the bar instead of vice versa (and she does disappoint admirers and players) was a refreshing change from the norm, perhaps a 70s statement (as was mentioning Barbeau’s homosexuality in many dialogue pieces, including comments about how Hutton seems perfectly fine with her lifestyle, not at all bothered) in Carpenter’s script, further emphasized without Sophie actually kissing or explicitly involved with a woman during the film. The voyeur and predator with a key to Arkham Tower, and knowledge as an electrician with means and opportunity to bug Leigh’s apartment and listen to her conversations when he’s not peeping on her through his telescope, is only physically involved twice that we see. Leigh not going down without a fight isn’t a surprise…she’s a tough cookie. And she doesn’t have help from the police or Paul at the end…it is her protecting herself, another nice bit of business from Carpenter in his story. Barbeau gets time to leave an impression as the chatty, blunt, but accessible friend who listens has a tragic end, sad particularly because she was set to go to Fort Worth as a new, well-paying job awaited her. Paul is soft-spoken, quite low-tone, and always even keel…even as Leigh seems at her breaking point, he has this calm about him, perhaps what she needs considering what is happening to her. I like how Carpenter and his expert camera crew (the POV throughout her apartment at the end as the camera moves quick succession from one room to the next, and the camera holding on Hutton’s face and then looking into the Laundromat of the garage in her apartment complex definitely gave me Halloween vibes of Laurie Strode’s neighborhood walks and the visits into the Myers house at the beginning or where Annie and friends are murdered by Michael) make the most of the confines of her apartment, and the brief drives in LA, the view of the city during the day and some brief glimpses of the night life. *** / ****

I think it would be neat to watch this right before Halloween (1978) to sort of see how John develops his skills and craft from a television movie to a major horror classic, both films under small budgets and rather limited timelines/schedule.

The hiding underneath the grate after dropping her knife down it in the laundromat and upward shot of her tormentor dropping a cigarette that inevitably finds its path practically across her nose is slick giallo type filmmaking. Excursion Unlimited, used as a false prize awarding company, is quite a clever ruse used by the killer...a device to encourage interest and gradually fear.

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Nicely suspenseful television movie from the director of "Halloween" stars Lauren Hutton as Leigh Michaels, having moved from NYC (and a bad relationship) to LA, getting a job at a broadcast station, finding a nice, posh apartment in one of those swank high rises, named Arkham Tower. Leigh befriends lesbian Sophie(Adrienne Barbeau) who is a co-worker at the station as well as a professor she falls in love with, Paul (David Birney). Leigh starts receiving weird phone calls and unusual faux travel brochures, eventually realizing that a voyeur, with access it seems to her apartment and the electrical systems of Arkham Tower, is keeping a close eye on her every activity. It also seems that this bastard, the creep with a telescope and recording machine, has set a bug in Leigh's room and perhaps has preyed upon other female victims in the past. Leigh, however, is a tough chick and doesn't scare easy, but when her pleas to police (including inspector Gary Hunt, played by Carpenter regular Charles Cyphers) seem to gain less and less traction (particularly after they arrest a photographer believed to be the culprit), fear and paranoia set in and she may have to face the killer/stalker on her own. With shades of "Rear Window" (Sophie looks on from Leigh's apartment as she enters the voyeur's pad, resulting in a tragic series of events our heroine cannot prevent), Carpenter wrings as much suspense and palpable dread he can out of the familiar premise. Sure "Someone's Watching Me!" is a "safe" television thriller, but thanks to the affective use of the dark, Carpenter ably evokes foreboding because we never get an exact look of the killer's face until the very end, although the director does show the inside of his lair, the tape recorder spinning, his eye shown behind the telescope as he peeps at Hutton. Hutton is very, very good here, at first, her character doesn't take the phone calls seriously, but as events spiral out of control and the creep leaves her written messages, teasing her with an eerie writing on her bathroom mirror (this is a cool scene where the writing is on a mirror by way of moisture because the steaming shower is running, with Carpenter showing the message slowly evaporate), the poor woman's emotional state is tested. With Paul as her ally, Leigh might just get to the bottom of her predator's identity, how he's able to gain access to apartments, have such free reign to torment ladies he fixates on. A nice supporting part for future scream queen Barbeau; her fate is certainly harrowing. Hutton has a strong character, here, and a pleasant personality, not to mention, a charming wit and warm sense of humor—this is important because when she is victimized you hope she gets even with her tormentor. This film, to be a television movie, has a cinematic style and sophisticated camera-work; Carpenter buffs should check it out. I think the best scene could be early on, where Carpenter establishes the menace's threat, when Hutton finds her door open, entering reluctantly to find that someone has been there, not knowing (as she peers out her window) that the peeping tom is behind her, scurrying away really quickly ("darting past" is probably more apt), before she could get a good look at him. I think this scene is important in that it points out how easily he could be in the same room with her, with us understanding that his threat is legitimate.