‘Someone’s Watching Me!” – the Lost John Carpenter Movie

“Someone’s Watching Me!” is referred to as the lost John Carpenter movie due it’s unavailability on video and DVD for years and years. It finally got released on DVD in 2007, but while there are some Carpenter movies I still need to catch up on, this may be the only one I haven’t heard of before. I ended up buying it from a video store that was closing down for good as I am a huge fan of the director’s work, and I have no excuse for being this far behind on what he’s made.

It stars Lauren Hutton as Leigh Michaels, a television director who has just moved to Los Angeles and set herself up in a luxurious apartment in a high rise building. But as soon as she starts unpacking her goodies, a stranger starts stalking her with his telescope and calls to leave threatening messages with the deep, ominous voice stalkers usually talk in. Things continue to get worse until she finally decides to take matters into her hands.

Carpenter wrote the screenplay for “Someone’s Watching Me!” back when he primarily made a living writing scripts. At that point he had only directed “Dark Star” and “Assault on Precinct 13,” and he began shooting “Halloween” a few days after completing this. You can see a lot of “Halloween” in this one as Carpenter gets some great shots of what’s going on behind a character, and the point of view shots really up the tension as he puts you into Hutton’s shoes while she is continually menaced. It also shows how even before “Halloween” how brilliant he was in not only creating suspense and tension, but also in maintaining all the way to the end.

This script also shows one of Carpenter’s strengths as a writer in that he creates strong female characters that would later inhabit most of his movies. Hutton is vey good as Michaels and I thought she made the character very believable in tough in a way that wasn’t showy. As her anxiety gets worse, she stands her ground and refuses to move out of her apartment. Michaels is not about to be intimidated by this peeping tom, and you root for her to turn the tables on this guy.

“Someone’s Watching Me!” also stars Adrienne Barbeau who later became Carpenter’s wife for a time (this was the first thing they worked on together). She plays Michaels’ co-worker Sophie who is tough as nails and not easily intimidated by those around her. Barbeau gives Hutton great support throughout, and it’s great fun watching her steal some scenes.

The movie also stars David Birney (the same guy who later married Meredith Baxter) as Paul Winkless, the man Michaels ends up flirting with and falling for. It’s almost surprising that Michaels would fall for anyone as she proudly asserts as an independent woman from the start. Birney though matches Hutton’s strength and wit throughout. Of course, Carpenter’s direction successfully casts doubt on him as well as everyone else surrounding Michaels throughout the film.

Charles Cyphers, a member of Carpenter’s repertory company of actors, appears here as police detective Gary Hunt. It threatens to be a thankless part as the police character seems brought in just to express disbelief in the protagonist’s fears, but watching him here makes you see why Carpenter still likes working with him; Cyphers gives us a character who might be a cliché, but he imbues him with a worldliness which makes his actions and beliefs believably understandable. Some actors would just consider this a paycheck role that they could just walk through, but Cyphers proves to be the kind of actor who doesn’t fall to such inexcusable laziness.

Carpenter gets to exhibit a lot of shots that have made him a master of horror and suspense. He utilizes different camera moves like shooting handheld or panning back and forth to reveal something just around the corner. The fact that this made for TV movie holds up today says a lot about the master of horror’s talent.

Granted, this movie was made back in 1978 when voyeurism was a rarity at best. These days everyone’s a voyeur and perhaps easier to catch. To find that someone is watching you from afar and that your privacy is a thing of the past is not a hard scenario to believe. Maybe that makes a movie like “Someone’s Watching Me!” as scary as ever. Even with the constraints of a made for television movie, and these days you most likely this one on the Lifetime Network every other week, Carpenter creates a thrilling tale which holds you in its tense grip and never lets you go.

* * * ½ out of * * * *

See also:

John Carpenter’s “The Ward” – The “Halloween” Master Returns

John Carpenter’s “They Live”

John Carpenter’s “The Thing”


People also view

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *