Someone's Watching Me! (1978)

Director: John Carpenter

Writer: John Carpenter

Composer: Harry Sukman

Starring: Lauren Hutton, David Birney, Adrienne Barbeau, Charles Cyphers, Grainger Hines, Len Lesser John Mahon, James Murtaugh

More info: IMDb

Plot: A woman is slowly stalked to the brink of madness by a man watching her from the opposite tower block. Her attempts to get the police to take her seriously leave her with no option but to track him down herself.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Very close to the beginning we get treated to utter nonsense like this...

If this is how it starts, holy fuck...what's the rest of it going to be like?  Well, it's not that bad, especially for a TV movie but then they knew how to make really good made-for-TV flicks back then.  And you've also got to consider this is about to be a superstar John Carpenter who made horror history that same year with HALLOWEEN (1978) (SWM was filmed first).  This type and structure of film has been done before and since but it's directed by Carpenter and it's also got Adrienne Barbeau, who seems like she would have been better suited for Lauren Hutton's role.  Hutton does a good job (except for that laughable scene above) but Barbeau would have been more welcome I think.  The picture starts to drag once Leigh (Hutton) starts to fight back and do some super sleuthing since the fuzz can't do anything more than what they've already done.  You can definitely tell it's Carpenter if you've seen HALLOWEEN a few times.  His style really shows in the final minutes of the film with his use of the first person camera.  It works very well here.  The Warner Bros. DVD has a great looking widescreen print and for extras we get just one.  It's a 6-minute featurette called, JOHN CARPENTER: DIRECTOR RISING, with Carpenter talking about the genesis and making of this film.  One interesting tidbit was it was filmed in under 10 days.  It helps to watch this before the movie but only if you don't mind being spoiled.