I have a soft spot for the ultra talented Maika Monroe. I imagine in ten years time, sitting down and talking to her about her career, role choices and the exceptional talent she has for range in her roles. With that in mind, it was a no brainer to ask to review Chloe Okuno debt film, which sees her in the lead. That film is called WATCHER and. well lets discuss. Monroe is a young American woman, who has just married and with her husband Francis (Carl Glusman), has just moved to Bucharest. He has been posted there for work, she is going to get to know the place and the language. Maybe get a job. Maybe get a chance to understand herself. Long days in the flat, long days on the streets take there toll. She begins to suspect that a stranger who watches her from the apartment building across the street could be more menacing then everyone else thinks. She thinks maybe he is a local serial killer that enjoys nothing more than watching women for days before decapitating them in ever more horrific, bloody madness.

WATCHER feels a lot like a Brian De Palma. Well a film if he has come back to make modern takes on his obsessive version of Hitchcocks work. Some in the film world compaired this to REAR WINDOW but with less of sexuality and more isolation. I disagree. There is more in common here with absensce. Weirdly it is a spiritual successor to IT FOLLOWS in that it is peopled in our world of technological seperation. It feels tense because of this. Abstract but also remote and out of step cinematically, with expectation. In the directors commentary, Okuno hints at the remoteness, the isolation and the screens big spaces, filled by tension over character. Weirdly, the film might not work as well as many suggest but it plays enough to deliver beacuse it lets Monroe get into her stride. Monroe has been slowly rising up the cinematic foodchain for sometime before she came here. My favourites show her variety. From her rebellious softness in THE GUEST, to here big budget turn in INDEPENDANCE DAY : RESURGENCE and then to her stand out performance in GRETA, each is layered. Each varied in size. Each amazing. Her performance here is mixed vulnerable woman with screen siren. What is interesting, I get the bizarre realisation that Monroe is tracking a career of a 70s Hollywood screen icon. From B movie greatness to A list in a long climb. WATCHER is far from the best film to thrill you but it shows Monroe can deliver expertly, every time.