Chicago Critics Film Fest 2022 Review: Watcher

✰✰✰✰½​ (out of five)

Synopsis: As a serial killer stalks the city, a young actress who just moved to town with her boyfriend notices a mysterious stranger watching her from across the street.

Review: Watcher is unnerving. And I don't mean that in a negative. Quite the contrary. The film's suspense is ratcheted up to the nth degree, and that's the unnerving part. The film places the viewer (or the film's watcher?) into our lead's shoes, questioning sanity at every peel of that plot's layers. Maika Monroe is exceptional as Julia, struggling to keep paranoia from getting the best of her. Her performance is why we are her. I was quite literally white-knuckled through this entire running time, a taught and tight 96 minutes that only adds to the tension of what we think and what we watch on-screen.