Someone’s Watching Me (1978)

 

Someone’s Watching Me (1978)

 

With Writer/Director John Carpenter’s break-through film, “Halloween” (1978) there were many comparisons between he and Director Alfred Hitchcock. These comparisons were not groundless, but flawed; Carpenter’s guiding light was always Director Harold Hawks, but every Director worth his salt, Carpenter was a Student of more than one influence, and when it comes to Hitchcock, there’s basically no one alive who isn’t his Student in one way or other.

 

While still in school, Carpenter co-Wrote, Edited, and Scored the Oscar-Winning short-film “The Resurrection of Broncho Billy” (1970) and his first theatrically released features, “Dark Star” (1974) & “Assault of Precinct Thirteen” (1976), though both were initially Critical and Financial failures, they earned him a lot of Street Cred and were then elevated in later assessments. The phenomenal success of “Halloween” (1978), his third theatrically-released feature, changed everything for him. Just before “Halloween” went into production, and released after just after, he made this feature-length TV movie, now forgotten, but of some importance. “Someone is Watching Me” is his most Hitchcock-influenced, unapologetically referencing “Rear Window” (1954), but unlike the works of Director Brian DePalma, Carpenter wasn’t just having fun with Homages, he was learning a vocabulary and applying it for somewhat different purposes. I should also throw in, the Hitchcock references were abundant, Carpenter still chose to handle the camera more like Hawks. Carpenter’s previous effort, “Assault on Precinct …” was basically an urbanized version of Hawk’s “Rio Bravo” (1959) and one can see Carpenter mimicking how Hawks captured the landscape. Here, he treated interior spaces the way “Assault on Precinct …” treated exterior ones. Critic Jake Cole put it nicely, “Carpenter uses the opening scenes to establish the dimensions of Leigh’s apartment, rooting the camera in a fixed position to pan around the unit in order to subtly emphasize its spatial limits, as well as how much of it is exposed to outside view. When the camera does start to rove through the area, it immediately gives the impression of an intruder prowling the cramped space around Leigh.”

 

Critic Jake Cole, “Carpenter uses the opening scenes to establish the dimensions of Leigh’s apartment, rooting the camera in a fixed position to pan around the unit in order to subtly emphasize its spatial limits, as well as how much of it is exposed to outside view. When the camera does start to rove through the area, it immediately gives the impression of an intruder prowling the cramped space around Leigh.”

 

At the foundation of all cinema, both in its creation and absorption, is the art of watching, which is why so many Filmmakers are obsessed with Voyeurism, but probably none more than Hitchcock, it’s evident in many of his films, but none more than “Rear Window.” We can see this in “Someone is Watching …” but here Voyeurism is not quite the primary subject. A film truly about Voyeurism is about how it seduces the Protagonist, but as clear even in the title, the primary Voyeur here is not the Protagonist, Leigh Michaels (Lauren Hutton), but the Antagonist (a barely seen George Skaff), an Unknown and Invisible Menace who’s realized that the Power of Watching is the Power to Manipulate, he always knows more about Leigh than Leigh of him, making her totally vulnerable and continually one step behind.

 

If the subject were Voyeurism, the film would’ve been about the Watching, but this is a film about Stalking, therefore, about being Watched. This is a quite strong connection between this film and “Halloween,” as in the reveal-scene, the one-and-only time we see the Villian’s face, which is near-identical in both films. But in this film, unlike “Halloween,” Leigh is in essentially every scene, and though there is the occasional cut-away to the shadowy Stalker to remind the Audience he is there, it doesn’t rely on his POV the way “Halloween” did. Carpenter chooses pans more than hand-held camera-work, and emphasizes the size of spaces, not their claustrophobia. It is in the images of the architecture: It’s largely set in a single, luxury, apartment suite, there is an ever present, an identical building across the way, dominating her huge windows, and which soon proves to be a plot point.

 

This is worked into the dialogue, Leigh’s love-interest. Paul Winless (David Birney) speculates of the Urban life, "we insulate our lives" and "guard our spaces" but technology can bring the threat into our homes, the Stalker is "trying to hurt" Leigh "without touching." Leigh's friend, Sophie (Adrienne Barbeau) concurs, Rape is not the Assault nearly so much as, "is when a man consciously keeps a woman in fear."

 

This film’s script came before “Halloween’s,” then, almost a year after the script was accepted by Warner Bros, so after “Halloween’s” script was finished, then made just before “Halloween” went into production. This script had far more sophisticated intentions than “Halloween,” but also far clumsier, and I suspect that “Halloween’s” tighter script and better Characterization with a simpler, dumber, story, reflected more than a little learn-by-doing. During the actual filming “Someone is Watching …” Carpenter admits he was testing out filming technics here that he’d be using to greater effect on “Halloween” mere weeks later. Carpenter actually made three feature-length projects that year (the third was another TV movie, “Elvis”) and said the pressure of the back-to-back productions was a huge learning experience.

 

A little context would be helpful here. Fetishizing the Stalker is been part of Horror cinema for so long I doubt anyone could find the first example, the earliest Vampire films display it, but it didn’t start there. In the 1960s, the Italian Gaillo sub-Genre brought new artistry to the idea, and starting in the late 1970s, the entire sub-Genre of the Slasher film (of which “Halloween” is one of the few Masterpieces) hinged on that even more than the Gore. There’s also the old standby, the Woman-in-Perel sub-Genre, which is usually not even Horror, and they are all really films about Stalkings.

 

And Stalkings are real. And women are really the most common Victims. And Law Enforcement is really inhibited in dealing with these Deviant Predators because much of their specific acts aren’t even Illegal. In the USA, the first, specific, anti-Stalking law was passed in California, the same place this film was set, and not surprisingly since it is a World of Celebrities, so people who attract Stalkers, and the center of the film and TV industries, which made Stalking a frequent subject matter in their entertainments; but even with all that, that Anti-Stalking Law wasn’t passed until 1990, and only after being triggered by the unrelated but near back-to-back Attempted Murder Actresses Theresa Saldana (1982) and then Murder of Actress Rebecca Schaeffer (1989). This film, decades prior to the Law, was a fiction, but inspired by a Real-World-Incident of a Stalking that unfolded in Chicago.

 

Carpenter: "I thought it was a really, really good idea. So, I had my first experience with television. And my first union experience. I got into the Director's Guild through that. I had a real good time on it, I have to tell you. I met my wife."

 

The “wife” he refers to is Actress Barbeau as Character Sophie. Something sort-of-groundbreaking in the TV movie is the Sophie is a Lesbian but that is treated in total mater-of-fact-ness and she never shows any improper intents toward her new friend Leigh.

 

^{The main Cast is small, and all very solid. Actress Hutton brought some real Star-Power in both film and TV, and her performance was excellent; this was a pretty minor outing for her, but after filming she said, "I think it's the best thing I've done." Actor Birney may not have had as much Star-Power as Hutton, but was among the USA’s leading TV Actors at the time. Actress Barbeau was an up-and-coming in TV soon to be a major film Star, in large part because of coming collaborations with her then-future husband.}

 

^{All others, including the Villian, were minor parts, filling the background of a crowded city as Carpenter continually reminds us is an artificial environment, dominated more by inhuman geometries than flesh-and-blood. As the Stalker’s MO is decoded, it is apparent he is part of the environment, and the isolation the environment creates is his best weapon. For most of the running time, the film substitutes the building for the Stalker as the Villian, it is many ways an appealing space, but subtly sinister from the get-go. The building is called the Arkham Tower, a reference to the great Horror Writer H.P Lovecraft, famously disdainful of seething Urbanity, and the Realtor boasts of its "eighty miles of wiring and cables," every apartment is controlled by a computer that adjusts the AC according to the sunlight, has a restaurant, gift shop, and wedding chapel, so it is not a surprise when the building’s technologies turn against Leigh. Arkham is all clean lines and big windows, and the film features only a few scenes wherein shadows are prominent, yet still becomes the embodiment of the Villian’s power. Not for nothing, the film’s working title was “High Rise.”}

 

Carpenter has admitted, with some embarrassment, how trashy and Misogynistic “Halloween” is, though it is the better of the two films. Here, he challenges just that. Leigh just arrived in town, the Director of live TV Programing at KJHC. Except for her boyfriend Paul and a Detective (Charles Cyphers) who goes the extra-mile even though the lack of strong laws disempowers him, all the men with speaking roles are over-bearing and most are MCPs (Male Chauvinistic Pigs). But in these scenes, there’s also an underlying theme of the obstacles to creating substantive human connection so Leigh got very lucky when she approached Paul moments after brushing off yet another MSP. Actually, unbelievably lucky, some of the dialogue early in the film is simply awful, and there’s an alleged joke about being Raped by dwarves that you really have to wonder what the hell Carpenter thinking.

 

The Stalking begins with anonymous phone calls, then mysterious gifts, then escalates. All violence is avoided until late in the film, when it arrives it is bloodless, not only because of TV Censorship issues, but because the Terrorism is Psychological. The Predator is clearly more experienced at this than Leigh is and knows the rules of the game. But she proves no push-over, established well during the scene of her first day on the job, before the Stalker is even introduced. (Note: Some cuts of this have a prologue, introducing the threat right-up-front and out-of-chronology, which accomplishes nothing but confusing the Audience.)

 

Some bad dialogue and plot loopholes didn’t deter the TV movie from being well-received and nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America.

+++++++++++++++




Someone’s Watching Me!, Halloween, and Elvis, which were all shot in 1978. Carpenter himself holds forth on that tumultuous, educational year and how the pressure of working on all three works helped him to further hone his filmmaking skill. He particularly emphasizes the work done on this telefilm for allowing him access to professional, experienced crew members who taught him even more than he already knew about how to film under tight deadlines and small budgets.

 

Trailer:

NBC promo Someone's Watching Me! 1978 (youtube.com)