SOMEONE’S WATCHING ME!

DVD Review

SOMEONE’S WATCHING ME!

John Carpenter is kinda a special guy to me. Not only did he make my favorite movie of all time, but he also well… made my favorite movie of all time! Oh, that’s HALLOWEEN in case you were wondering. John Carpenter has remained one of my most beloved filmmakers ever, and the unknown SOMEONE’S WATCHING ME! was the final film of his direction that I had yet to see (Yes, I have even seen ELVIS!). And now it’s almost depressing that I have nothing left of his to check out other than a few writing jobs of his like THE EYES OF LAURA MARS (taped from OnDemand, need to get around to it), and a couple of others. I guess he just has to start making movies again! (HINT HINT J.C.!)

For those of you who don’t know, SOMEONE’S WATCHING ME! is a made-for-TV film that John Carpenter originally wrote as a feature, but was considered too soft by Warner Brothers, so they gave it to the TV Department. Carpenter was also attached as part of his deal to be considered to direct the film, so they decided to take a chance and he delivered! The film was shot in nine days and two weeks later, Carpenter was setting up his first shot on the set of another little-known film of his entitled HALLOWEEN.

SOMEONE’S WATCHING ME! is the now played-out story of Leigh (Laura Hutton), a live television director who has just moved to Los Angeles to find a new job after a bad relationship in the workplace forced her out of New York. She moves into a nice highrise apartment, makes friends with the beautiful young lesbian Sophie (Adrienne Barbeau), and begins bumping pelvises with the charming and kind-hearted Paul (David Birney). But when she starts receiving odd presents, obscene phone calls, strange prize offers from an unknown company, and anonymous letters, her life starts to become a living Hell. After the police fail to do anything (Charles Cyphers in his second of four Carpenter films), it’s up to Leigh and her friends to find out what pervert is responsible.

There are many parallels between SOMEONE’S WATCHING ME! and HALLOWEEN. Both deal prominently with voyeurism. Carpenter’s adoration of the films of Alfred Hitchcock are more prevalent here than in any other of his films, mimicking the “VERTIGO shot” of the simultaneous zoom and dolly, as well as even redoing a sequence from REAR WINDOW, not to mention the film’s plot, which is nearly a reverse of the latter Hitchcock classic. We also witness the birth of a few scare tactics and framing techniques that Carpenter would later perfect in HALLOWEEN. Carpenter also heavily employs the Panaglide steady-cam, using it as the POV of Leigh in a tense climactic scene while running through her dark apartment.

While the plot of being watched from afar and obscene phone calls is exhausted, Carpenter does still manage to invoke interest. It helps that the cast are all likable. The film does deliver in the creep-out factor, as it is creepy to be watched all day, every day. However, there is really no evident danger until a certain character meets their demise over an hour in. And while we witness early on that the antagonist’s prior victim was driven to suicide by his antics, it’s not until the climax that we realize it was actually murder. Even a dead cat nailed to her front door would have upped the ante.

Nonetheless, SOMEONE’S WATCHING ME! is just like a lot of the lesser known Carpenter films. They’re not perfect, but their positive qualities extensively outweigh the negative. Despite its flaws, the film is still well-made, entertaining, and jam packed with the love and still maturing talent that would blossom only two weeks later into what would become one of the finest directors to ever grace genre filmmaking. 3/4

SPECIAL FEATURES: The only feature was a six-minute interview with John Carpenter entitled “JOHN CARPENTER: DIRECTOR RISING” (A very oddly lit  featurette by the way. Fire that DP) which features Carpenter reminiscing about some of the history I mentioned above as well as what he learned from the experience and how he still likes it to this day. It’s more than anything I expected to have on the DVD, but I wanted more!

NOTE: I know that’s not the DVD cover up above, but I couldn’t find a good enough picture of it on Google to link. Sorry guys)

TRIVIA TID BIT: I bought a shitty bootleg DVD of SOMEONE’S WATCHING ME! at a convention two days before the official DVD release was announced! Talk about a waste of $10. I waited for the real DVD.