Watcher is a very Hitchcockian film that doesn’t quite stand up to its cinematic inspirations. Sometimes it comes close and you can feel what they are striving to be. I wish I liked the whole thing instead of just some very good sequences.

The flick is about an American couple who have moved to Romania for work. She doesn’t speak the language and finds herself isolated and bored during the day and lonely at night when her husband works late. Quickly she begins to suspect a man in an apartment next door is watching her… and then she sees him watching her on the streets and stores.

The is an interesting film with some genuinely suspenseful and creepy moments surrounded by an overly long runtime that wastes a lot of time. But it could easily be argued that, without the swaths of not much really going on, the suspense wouldn’t be as suspenseful. Maybe… but, even if true, it wouldn’t have made me any more patient with the flick.

It does create a genuine feel of paranoia and makes you sometimes wonder if she’s actually the watcher or the one being watched. And this works pretty well in obscuring what’s really going on.

I’m wavering on the final score but settled on lower since the suspense is great but the downtown isn’t. Still a movie worth watching if you can tolerate some slower, less energetic sequences.

Score: 79