Review of A Stranger Is Watching (1982) by Timothy S — 04 Jun 2012

I guess after the critical drubbing Sean Cunningham took for "Friday the 13th", he felt the need to prove himself. He wanted to make a mainstream suspense film, light on gore and heavy on thrills. This is the resulting film, and it's as tepid and tame as his last film was controversial. There is an interesting premise here, and the kidnapping plot is believable and plausible. Unfortunately, the script doesn't flesh out that story well enough to keep the viewer involved.

It's not surprisingly based on a novel by Mary Higgins Clark, the queen of mediocre suspense novels, and I'm sure there would be a lot more bland suspense movies in the works if she had her way. Rip Torn is a fine actor, but he's wasted here as the kidnapper. He has a lot of potential to go over-the-edge and really take this performance to the next level, but it never happens. Thankfully, Cunningham slips back to his old ways and spices this up with some nifty, unnecessary gory murders. But the rest of this is strictly made-for-television territory.

It is kind of disappointing since the plot set-up is better than average, but the movie gets lost along the way. There's a lot of potential for "A Stranger is Watching" to be better than it's source material, but despite some good moments, there's not a lot to like here.