Watcher, on AFN

Julia's predicament is similar to Jimmy Stewart’s in Rear Window, but instead of a broken leg, she is hobbled by a language barrier. She also has a useless husband, who makes a poor substitute for either Gracy Kelly or Thelma Ritter. Regardless, she starts to suspect the serial killer stalking Bucharest is watching her from across the street, but nobody takes her seriously in director-screenwriter Chloe Okuno’s Watcher, which airs Tuesday on Armed Forces Network.

Francis’s family used to speak Romanian when he was young, so he feels at home in Bucharest. Julia doesn’t, at least not yet, but she was about to give up on her acting career, so she agreed to relocate. Nevertheless, she feels immediately feels socially and culturally isolated. She also has the sensation of being watched. It looks that way too, judging from the illuminated silhouette, behind the curtains of the apartment opposite them.

As an unnerving bonus, the serial killer known as the spider has killed several women in the neighborhood. Julia wonders if all this creepiness might be connected when a mystery man starts following her. She never gets a good look, but he seems drably non-descript in an ominous serial killer kind of way. Of course, the cops do not take her concerns seriously and Francis tries to explain everything away as a product of stress and suggestion.

Despite Shudder and IFC Midnight handling the domestic distribution for Watcher, it really is more of De Palma-esque thriller (the term “Hitchcockian” really ought to be reserved for a select few), rather than a horror movie. However, it works rather well on those terms.

Nocturnal Bucharest is definitely creepy. In fact, some of the most unsettling sequences tie into the anxiety you might remember from being out too late in a foreign city, where you really do not know the language. Okuno also captures the unnerving feeling of being watched. (And seriously, why would their furnished apartment come without curtains?)

Okuno has discussed Francis’s disbelief in feminist terms, but Julia’s frustration is more universal than that. Too often, people ignore warnings and suspicious behavior, because acting on it would be awkward. It seems easier to explain it away, but that often leads to bigger trouble long-term.

That said, Francis is a real jerkweed, who really sucks the energy out of the film—and Karl Glusman does nothing to humanize him or make him more credible. Fortunately, Maika Monroe is often on her own, carrying the film. She is quietly expressive and very down-to-earth as Julia. Madalina Anea is also terrific as Irina, the next-door neighbor, who is one of the few sympathetic Romanian characters. Plus, Burn Gorman is coldly and clammily sinister as Daniel Weber, who lives in the building over yonder.

It is clear Okuno watched and processed a lot of De Palma, Argento, and Polanski, because she turns Euro apartments and hallways into tense, claustrophobic pressure cookers. Consequently, it is an effective paranoid serial killer thriller, recommended for genre fans serving our country, when Watcher airs this Tuesday (9/2) on AFN (and it streams on Tubi and Shudder).