Monday, October 27, 2014

2014 Horror Countdown: Someone's Watching Me! (1978)



Someone’s Watching Me! (1978), dir. John Carpenter, Warner Brothers

Made for TV movies generally get a bad rap. Of course, many of them are terrible or overwrought, but every once in a while a diamond is found in the sand. Is John Carpenter’s first TV movie a diamond or sand? Read on to find out after these messages.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c7/Someone%27s_Watching_Me%21_.jpeg





Leigh Michaels (Lauran Hutton) has traded one big city for another. Moving from New York to take a job in television in LA, Leigh seems to be settling in rather nicely. Alone in her high rise apartment, Leigh has a great view of the city. What she is unaware of, though, is that someone else has a great view of her. For spoiler’s sake, let’s call him the Creep. The Creep easily finds outs where Leigh works and lives and begins sending her gifts. Leigh is not bothered by the flowers and trinkets, but the fact that someone she doesn’t know knows where she lives bothers her. The police are less than sympathetic; with the Inspector (J. Jay Saunders) more or less refusing to do anything as no law has technically been broken

Then the phone calls start coming, and Leigh has gone from bothered to freaked. The Creep seems to working off a script and he is not happy that Leigh is not following. The police, again, refuse to do anything. Judging from clues and some sound reasoning, Leigh manages to figure out where the Creep lives. Enlisting her best friend Sophie (Adrienne Barbeau) to stay in her apartment while she snoops, Leigh manages to break into the Creep’s place.
Sadly for her, and tragically for Sophie, the Creep isn’t there. He’s in Leigh’s apartment and he is not happy. Sophie learns this and a harsh reminder in gravity. Can Leigh finally get the police to do anything?

As a film, this is rather effective given the broadcasting standards of the day. Several elements have not aged well. Leigh and Sophie use walkie-talkies as one thing, but the police’s actions (or lack thereof) had me slapping my forehead roughly five minutes. The show has finally been released onto DVD so fans can finally see the lost Carpenter film.




No comments:

Post a Comment