Synopsis
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.
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Cast
- Maika MonroeJulia
- Karl GlusmanFrancis
- Burn GormanThe Watcher
- Mãdãlina AneaIrina
- Daniel NutaCristian
- Gabriela ButucFlavia
- Cristina DeleanuEleonora
- Ștefan IancuSebastian
- Florian GhimpuOfficer Radu
- Flaviu CrisanSimion
- 79
Paste Magazine
Watcher flourishes as it complicates its premise beyond the unknowable and faceless desires of a shadowy silhouette. - 75
The Film Stage
[Okuno’s] made a smart, controlled movie of pricks and gestures and tones that accumulate into a satisfying catharsis. And perhaps validated the urge to follow your gut. - 70
Film Threat
This classically styled thriller plays on universal themes of alienation to deliver a punchy diversion with macabre tints and a love of the genre. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
In a genre movie climate marked by cheap thrills and easy scares — whatever gets us not to click on something else — it’s nice to see a film that sustains a strong ambiance of dread simply via someone looking out the window and shopping for groceries. - 70
Variety
Watcher, if it has an agenda beyond being a fun, shivery, fish-out-of-water chiller, is not so much a manifesto to Believe All Women as it is a reminder to all women watching to at least believe ourselves. - 70
Screen Daily
The film is led by Maika Monroe’s fragile performance, which grounds the story even when the proceedings start to become formulaic. - 63
Slant Magazine
Watcher gives a feminist twist to a throwback genre, but never does its topicality dilute its gripping suspense. - 58
IndieWire
Instead of leaning into the ambiguous tensions and uncanny experiences, Watcher fails to live up to its inspirations, ending up a heavy-handed, predictable trip through genre tropes with a rather lifeless cast at its core. Watcher spells out every plot point to a tee, when we wish it would slowly, playfully tug at the threads of our anxieties.