Watcher                               4 stars

Imagine what a moviemaker would do if asked to make a horror movie set in Romania that did not involve vampires. That task is accomplished by relatively new director Chloe Okuno in the horror thriller Watcher. The movie stars Maika Monroe as Julia, the lonely American housewife who has followed her Romanian speaking husband Francis to Bucharest for his new job. Monroe has made a career of being the victim in many horror and drama movies that include It Follows, Villains, Greta and Bokeh. In Watcher, Julia has no friends because of the language barrier and wanders the city going to shops and diners while her husband is working. But she is not entirely alone as there is a dark figure of a man in the window of an apartment across the street that seems to always be present looking at her apartment. To increase the threat there is a story of young women in the city mysteriously getting their throats cut by a serial killer. Could the murders be linked to the man in the window? Not wanting to be another victim, Julia, the watched becomes the stalker, following the mysterious man through the neighborhood. This has to be one of the slowest developing horror movies I have seen recently, but it’s done well as the tension builds constantly until the startling conclusion. Monroe does a believable job as a woman who refuses to be another victim. Watcher was featured at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. I had not heard of writer director Okuna before, but after seeing Watcher I look forward to seeing Bodies Bodies Bodies, a comedy horror movie that she has a writing credit for. (It is due to be released later this summer.)