Director John Carpenter‘s early motion pictures like Assault on Precinct 13 and Halloween present how efficient he might be when creating soundscapes to construct the specter of personified forces of destruction. Into the ‘80s, Carpenter refined these skills, which makes it all the more startling to watch his NBC made-for-TV movie which has very little of his usual Carpenterisms. Someone’s Watching Me! was extremely onerous to seek out not too way back. It was even thought-about the director’s misplaced movie. Then, its accessibility modified for the higher when it was launched on Blu-ray in 2018. Someone’s Watching Me! has apparent Hitchcockian influences, named for grasp of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. The movie’s city setting additionally nearly discovered its method into the slasher franchise Carpenter by chance unleashed. Despite the TV film format’s limitations, John Carpenter made an efficient thriller, anchored by two charming actresses, one ending up as a recognizable face within the director’s later initiatives.
‘Someone’s Watching Me!’ Takes Inspiration From Alfred Hitchcock
Leigh Michaels (Lauren Hutton) strikes into Arkham Towers in downtown LA, relocating from New York City. She’s in want of a brand new begin and a brand new job, each of which she will get pretty shortly. At Leigh’s job directing, she befriends Sophie (Adrienne Barbeau), and after assembly at a bar, Leigh will get romantically concerned with Paul (David Birney). Just as quickly as life appears to be easy crusing, eerie telephone calls from a male caller are available, invading Leigh’s office and her residence. Finding help in Sophie and Paul, however hardly a lot with the police, Leigh grows pissed off sufficient to take it upon herself to seek out out who her stalker is — and the place he’s. Someone’s Watching Me! may sound like a riff on Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window and the comparisons shouldn’t be ignored, they find yourself as strengths in stunning audiences with the instructions the story goes in.
Halloween pulls a lot affect from Hitchcock’s Psycho, the 2 discovering terror in small cities, the place a knife-happy killer assaults first Janet Leigh, then her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis. In Someone’s Watching Me! there’s even larger inspiration from a Hitchcock traditional. Whereas Psycho and Halloween name the horror style their residence, John Carpenter’s TV film Someone’s Watching Me! has a set-up paying homage to Rear Window (1954) the place voyeurism is essential to the thriller thriller. James Stewart is Jeffries, caught in his NYC condominium as he recovers from an harm, unable to withstand the urge to peep at his neighbors. It isn’t lengthy till Jeffries witnesses a wierd sequence of occasions that make him imagine there’s a assassin at massive. In Someone’s Watching Me!, Carpenter performs with altering up who the voyeur is relying on the scene, escalating the hazard by doing so. There is a bounce scare early on that may in all probability jolt anybody who watches for the primary time due to the dearth of any warning. This continues to be extra of a thriller than a horror flick.
John Carpenter’s ‘Someone’s Watching Me!’ Updates ‘Rear Window’
Leigh is a really totally different lead than Jeffries. To elevate the stakes, she isn’t motionless like him, resulting in her looking for the stalker outdoors the confines of her condominium. Having such an lively essential character is an replace that permits for extra suspense set items. When Hutton follows after who she believes is a suspect, she abruptly loses management of the state of affairs. Down in her constructing’s laundry room, she will be able to’t discover the person she was simply trailing. She then hears the sounds of footsteps, approaching, not retreating. Leigh must be fast, selecting to cover below a flooring grate to keep away from detection. This complete sequence grows extra claustrophobic because it goes on, following Leigh’s sprint from her condominium’s huge house, to the slender hallways resulting in the basement, earlier than ending within the tight hiding spot Leigh crams herself into.
Leigh’s profession is a plot alternative that solely provides to the voyeurism this film is all about. She directs stay TV and is superb at it. She fastidiously orders the suitable digicam actions and positions, wanting via a monitor for the picture. The grand window in her condominium’s lounge allows a very good quantity of sunshine however is basically one other display screen for viewing. Her stalker is watching from the constructing throughout, besides this mysterious man doesn’t merely depend on sight alone. Instead of the film choosing an enormous plot twist late within the runtime, Carpenter permits the viewers in on a secret solely the antagonist is aware of (a favourite use of suspense from Hitchcock too). You’ll know the second when the digicam lowers, away from Leigh’s face, and to the nasty shock ready for her to catch on. Leigh’s condominium might need her title on the lease, and it could be crammed and adorned along with her private belongings, however this place isn’t hers, it’s the stalker’s. For how a lot dominance her stalker appears to have and gloats on, Leigh doesn’t again down. Her lounge window, with the curtains pulled away, opens her life to be watched, and it might probably simply as nicely let her look again to seek out these leering eyes.
Leigh, and the way Lauren Hutton performs her, helps to maintain the story participating when it isn’t centered on the thriller points. Leigh just isn’t simply frazzled, she’s good below stress even when she needs she didn’t should cope with the stress. She typically talks to herself, to organize for a job interview or to kill the empty noise that sits round her in her new place. Initially, she reacts to the odd occurrences as if it’s catcalling, mistaking the stalker’s thoughts video games for what they’re. The telephone calls aren’t sufficient to impress her. Gifts begin displaying up. James Stewart doesn’t get caught up within the psychological cat-and-mouse state of affairs as Lauren Hutton does. After Leigh realizes it is a extra harmful state of affairs, she pushes again in opposition to her tormentor.
‘Someone’s Watching Me!’ Is an Early Collab Between John Carpenter & Adrienne Barbeau
Among the slim solid, there’s Adrienne Barbeau as Sophie, a co-director in Leigh’s place of business. Barbeau, well-known on the time for starring within the sitcom Maude, has now change into extra well-known for her darker roles; the actress would additionally get married to Carpenter and have an even bigger function in The Fog (1980). But earlier than that, she performed a supporting function in Someone’s Watching Me!, among the best elements of the TV film. John Carpenter is now recognized for his collaborations with actors, from Sam Neill to Kurt Russell, and the performances he will get from actresses shouldn’t be ignored. While Jamie Lee Curtis could be the primary to get name-dropped, Adrienne Barbeau deserves recognition too. Her voice has a gravitas all by itself, put to excellent use in The Fog. What makes Barbeau’s character stunning in Someone’s Watching Me! is how she’s written to be a lesbian which the film doesn’t deal with too terribly, contemplating the time interval and the style.
She comes out to Leigh throughout an informal dialog about ex-lovers, with out it derailing their new friendship. The Hutton-Barbeau pairing finally is much extra participating than the male costar Hutton’s character is written to be in love with. In an interview for Shout! Factory’s 2018 Blu-ray launch, Barbeau has nothing however constructive ideas when wanting again on this film, giving a point out to Sophie’s sexuality. Fans proceed to work together along with her with an appreciation for enjoying the function — followers who felt recognition with Sophie’s fast point out that she has not an oz of heterosexuality in her veins. The dynamic between Leigh and Sophie is safer to put money into, be it how they talk about their place in a male-dominated office, or how they exist in a film the place the boys are unhelpful or a suspect in being the stalker. For Carpenter followers, Charles Cyphers seems, enjoying a cop who’s more than pleased to cope with Leigh’s stalker drawback — and catches the mistaken man.
John Carpenter Wrote ‘Someone’s Watching Me!’ as a Feature Film
Although that didn’t occur, he was simply as joyful to get it made as a TV film. A enjoyable reality referring to the position of Someone’s Watching Me! on Carpenter’s cinematic resume, he labored on this and two weeks later, went on to direct Halloween. Notably, it has much less of Carpenter’s favourite thought of a silent, unstoppable, like in Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and what would tackle an entire different life in a lot of his later motion pictures. There was a second when story concepts from Someone’s Watching! nearly bled right into a Michael Myers sequel Carpenter begrudgingly went to draft. According to Bloody Disgusting, a blurb in Fangoria “described Halloween II as being set years after the events of the original, with a much more cautious Laurie Strode now living in a high-rise apartment with incredibly tight security.”
Producer Debra Hill was even famous as saying there have been plans for it to be a “3D” film. This, in fact, just isn’t what occurred with Halloween II (1981), going down on the identical night time as the unique. Beer and author’s block had been two points that affected Carpenter as he tried to determine a sequel to write down that he actually didn’t wish to. Although not confirmed, it’s doable this stress compelled him to assume again and consider doing a hybrid between Someone’s Watching Me! and Halloween. It wouldn’t be the final time Michael Myers might have hunted prey in a metropolis setting.
The large e-book Taking Shape II by Dustin McNeil and Travis Mullins reveals a historical past of the Halloween sequels that by no means occurred. One is the Halloween 4 draft by writing group Daniel Kenney and Marc Allyn Medina, which had an older Laurie working as an editor within the Chicago high-rise workplace of Real People Magazine, with a household of her personal now, earlier than having to cope with the return of the masked slasher. This Kenney/Medina draft was heavy in an MTV-style and whereas it didn’t get made, it nonetheless makes for a captivating “what if?” to the franchise. Michael Myers has but to invade a metropolis to at the present time, Jason and Ghostface have since crushed him to it.
‘Someone’s Watching Me!’ Is John Carpenter’s Lost-Then-Found Movie You Should Find
Someone’s Watching Me! makes a very good case for why the slow-moving Haddonfield boogeyman might be a risk outdoors his favourite small city. Hutton’s high-rise is a entice. For all of the house Haddonfield could have in sprawling neighborhoods, it’s by no means sufficient to flee. The scene which finds Leigh having to go below a flooring grate is one instance, in a film with many, the place a metropolis can be simply as claustrophobic from a lurking monster. This TV film doesn’t have a lot of Carpenter’s later logos. There is not any minimalist music he made himself to push the anxiousness as Leigh will get a detailed name. He labored with composer Harry Sukman (Salem’s Lot) for a extra conventional thriller rating (and he didn’t get to edit the footage).
What makes Someone’s Watching Me! important viewing is in seeing how the director discovered to work out digicam actions and full all of the filming over ten days, an excellent expertise he utilized to Halloween’s tight schedule. The Steadicam will get used for sure photographs, together with one the place Leigh storms into her condominium to find a pointy letter opener that appears prefer it might do much more injury than a butcher knife. How the digicam flows beside her, then will get near catch her hand as she picks up her weapon, isn’t too totally different from the sluggish presence of the digicam’s POV within the opening to his traditional slasher. This once-lost movie by the director and one little or no talked about, even by Carpenter himself, shouldn’t be forgotten any longer.