Newly arrived to Netflix is the 2022 movie Watcher. This psychological thriller is about a woman being hunted by a mysterious stranger in Romania was Certified Fresh with a score of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes and it was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Independent Film.
Watcher was written and directed by Chloe Okuno in her feature film directorial debut. Okuno is making a name for herself in horror circles as she’s also known for her work directing episodes of Let the Right One In and Teacup, as well as the “Storm Drain” segment in V/H/S/94. The movie features an all-star cast with some impressive horror chops, including Maika Monroe (Longlegs, The Stranger) as Julia, Karl Glusman (Love, The Bikeriders) as Francis and Burn Gorman (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio) as Watcher.
Here’s the synopsis of the movie: “A young American woman moves with her husband to Bucharest, and begins to suspect that a stranger who watches her from an apartment window may be a serial killer.”
As a horror movie, Watcher plays on several tropes, including a fish out of water story of a woman living in a new place without a grasp of the language, a woman whose concerns are written off by authorities and a stalker who seems to be watching everywhere she goes. That edge-of-your-seat level storytelling propels Watcher to the top of our must-watch list for sure.
It’s worth noting that Monroe’s latest feature, the 2024 critically acclaimed horror movie Longlegs, is now available to stream on Peacock in the US (available to rent via Prime Video in the UK). This time around, she plays an FBI agent who is on the hunt for a terrifying serial killer in 1990s Oregon. The serial killer is played to perfection by Nicolas Cage, whose off-the-rails portrayal is both chilling and . As she gets closer and closer to the killer, she realizes that she must act fast to keep him from completing his mission.
Watcher is available to stream now on Netflix in the US and UK (note in the UK it's marked as "leaving soon so watch it quick!".
