Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Someone's Watching Me


(1978) TVM ***

Leigh is ecstatic when she purchases a beautiful high rise apartment with a magnificent view in downtown L.A. Her good fortune continues when she is immediately hired to work at a local television station as the station’s director. Her seemingly charmed life starts to unravel as she begins to receive strange, anonymous phone calls and worse, odd little gifts. The phone calls and gifts suggest that her unknown assailant must be someone living in the high-rise across from her building. When the police prove to be useless she decides to take matters into her own hands.



Someone’s Watching Me is John Carpenter’s Rear Window. Shot before Halloween and debuting a month after Halloween was released Carpenter’s stamp can be seen all over this teleplay. Leigh resembles the Laurie Strode “victim” and Carpenter’s POV camera work will remind you of his famous slasher. For a television movie this is a nice little thriller with above par acting and terrific cinematography. Still, it offers little in the way of originality and the big reveal isn’t all that interesting.



One minor quibble; I hate ringing telephones. There is a lot of ringing telephone in this film. I understand that movies such as Someone’s Watching Me use ringing telephones to ratchet up tension – in a sense the phone becomes another character in the film, however a ringing telephone is like nails on a chalkboard to me. At times I muted my television when the phone started ringing. I found myself yelling at the screen, “Just take it off the hook, dummy!”

12 comments:

Johnny Sweatpants said...

Very cool. I'm shocked at how many made for TV horror movies exist, let alone how many you watched this year.

I hate ringing phones too. Especially 1970's ringing phones.

Johnny Sweatpants said...

That Michael Jackson song has been in my head all day.

Catfreeek said...

These films were in abundance in the '70's. Some spark up memories and others I never heard of. Really great job digging up all these films this year. I've enjoyed all your reviews.

JPX said...

I think Rockwell sang that song, not Michael (or does Michael sing on it as well?O). Damnit, now it's stuck in my head!

JPX said...

I stand corrected, from Wiki, "Somebody's Watching Me" is the debut single by R&B artist Rockwell, released on the Motown label in 1984. The song's lyrics relate the narrator's paranoid fear of being followed and watched. It featured former Motown artists Michael Jackson on the chorus and Jermaine Jackson on additional backing vocals."

Johnny Sweatpants said...

I kind of like that song.

Catfreeek said...

Hey, how come you get 6 comments and I get none!

Catfreeek said...

Correction, 7!

Catfreeek said...

No 8...no 9! Doh!

Octopunk said...

There there, Cat. I just doubled your comments.

I've had "Weird Science" in my head for most of the day, and I'm not letting that whiny paranoid freak in there!

Love that first picture! Looks like it could be a scary moment but frozen like that it looks prankish.

DKC said...

I agree Octo.

"Hey! He's right there!"

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