Upamanyu Biswas
Directed by Chloe Okuno, ‘Watcher’ tells the story of Julia, a young actress who moves to Bucharest, Romania, with her boyfriend, Francis, in light of his new job posting. Soon after moving to the new place, Julia discovers a strange man watching their apartment from across the street daily. Troubled by his stares, she starts believing that he is stalking her everywhere she goes. Her anxieties are further exacerbated when the young couple discovers news that a mysterious serial killer named the Spider is on the loose, beheading female victims. As the narrative progresses, the lurking threat of the stranger morphs into something a lot more sinister as Julia tries to make sense of it all. To that end, the thriller movie delves into a dark psychological narrative rife with paranoia and isolation, exploring these real-life emotions in a terrifying context.
Watcher Taps Into the Fear of the Unknown
Although fictional in its conception, ‘Watcher’ is an examination of encountering danger and the different responses people have to their situation. Chloe Okuno wrote the film based on the original screenplay by Zack Ford. The central heartbeat of the narrative revolves around a stalker who follows a young woman through the streets of Bucharest as she settles into her new environment. As such, a large chunk of the project is brought to life through the eerie atmosphere and interactions between the characters. This otherwordly aspect helps build a sense of surrealness to Julia’s circumstance and makes it seem even more like it is all happening in her head. Thus, an internal conflict rages throughout the film, focusing on the stranger’s perceived threat and whether it may all be happening in Julia’s mind.
The film does a commendable job of making the audience question the validity and sanity of Julia’s experiences. Although she sees the danger as real, the people around her continuously disregard her fears, making it seem like a trivial matter blown out of proportion. According to Okuno, the original screenplay by Ford depicted the mysterious stalker as an overtly antagonistic presence. However, when she wrote her version of the script, she emphasized the ambiguous nature of the stalker, making him seem both threatening and also somewhat meek and normal. As a result, the protagonist often finds herself unsure of which version of events to believe in. The director explained that “she (Julia) was reacting in a way that I feel like I would react in the same situation.”
In an interview with Screen Rant, Okuno also said that she drew from other movies to help create an authentic world and environment for her characters to reside in. Some of her significant inspirations are Roman Polanski’s ‘Apartment Trilogy,’ Satoshi Kon’s ‘Perfect Blue,’ ‘Lost in Translation,’ and David Fincher’s ‘Seven.’ Each of these films adopts a slower, deliberate pacing to help create a sense of dread and tension, albeit to a lesser degree in ‘Lost in Translation.’ By taking time to portray Julia’s deteriorating mental stability, it gives a more comprehensive and realistic view of how someone who is put under the type of duress and stress such as her might break and lose their ability to function in a rational manner. However, more importantly, the fact that no one believes that the woman is in danger from a predator on the loose strikes eerily close to home.
Daniel Weber AKA The Spider is a Fictional Serial Killer With Vague Roots in Reality
Like the rest of the film, Daniel Weber, the stalker from the opposite building who turns Julia’s life into hell, is a fictional character conceived by the film’s writer and director, Chloe Okuno, who based the script of Zack Ford’s screenplay. He is the main antagonist of the movie and is later revealed to be the serial killer called The Spider lurking on the streets of Bucharest. The various news outlets describe The Spider as having a taste for killing and beheading young female victims. Although it may be a stretch, his signature murder style resembles the modus operandi of notorious serial killer Edmund Kemper, known as the Co-ed Killer. He was largely active in operation during the 1970s and mainly targeted female college students hitchhiking around Santa Cruz County, California. In a similar fashion to The Spider, Edmund often decapitated his victims.
It is likely that some inspiration may have been taken from Kemper’s way of operation while developing Weber’s character. However, the two remain separate because the latter is mainly active in Bucharest and has a different way of attacking his victims. Additionally, as alluded to before, Weber is portrayed as a somewhat sympathetic character at times, a choice deliberately made by the filmmaker. Okuno wanted the audience to feel that Weber was not outwardly antagonistic, making his true nature that much harder to figure out. However, as the narrative progresses, his actual identity starts to break free from his other facade, making Julia’s nightmares come true in a truly horrifying manner. He is a compelling and skin-crawling stalker villain who plays a specific role in the narrative even though he remains a fictional character who cannot be found in reality.
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