A Stranger is Watching (1982)

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Her mother’s killer returns.

At the age of 6 young Julie (Shawn Von Schreiber) witnesses her mother’s rape and murder at the hands of Ronald Thompson (James Russo) at least she thinks that’s who it was when instead it was really Artie Taggart (Rip Torn). Now Ronald is slated to go to the electric chair and news reporter Sharon Martin (Kate Mulgrew) covers the controversy, but just before his execution Julie and Sharon are kidnapped by Artie. He takes them deep into the bowels of Grand Central Station where he holds them hostage while demanding a ransom of $182,000 from Julie’s Father (James Naughton).

The story is based on the Mary Higgins Clark novel of the same name and due to his success with Friday the 13^th director Sean S. Cunningham is given a bigger budget to work with, which gives the production more of a visual style from the usual low budget horror flick. However, I was never convinced that Cunningham was all that great of a director and it was only through dumb luck that the Jason franchise became the big hit that it did and if anything this movie proves it. Even with more money put in and an interesting backdrop it still comes off as lackluster and uninspired.

The characters are boring particularly Torn’s psycho role where no backstory is given as to why he decides to come back to terrorize the same family when he was able to get away with the murder the first time and should feel lucky by allowing the other schmuck to take the fall and simply move on. Julie’s behavior is all wrong too. This is a child who witnessed her mother’s rape and murder, which would psychologically damage anyone else for life and yet she recovers from it like it was no big deal and acts overly angelic and gracious about everything.

The underground of Grand Central Station are the film’s best element as it captures the dank, dingy dankness quite well to the point that it almost becomes like a third character. However, when Torn kidnaps the two women he puts the girl into a sleeping bag and then carries her through the station in order to get to the spot where he hides her, but I kept wondering why she didn’t yell for help as they pass by many people in the process. He didn’t drug her, so she was free to yell out, so why doesn’t she?

I’ve read other novels written by Clark although not this one, but I was always impressed with the amount of twists that she had in them and was surprised how little that there are here. The film does feature one small surprise, but then treats it as a throwaway scene that soon gets forgotten. In the end the viewer gets treated to nothing more than a placid blueprint of the novel in a plot that gets more formulaic and pedestrian as it goes on.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: January 22, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Sean S. Cunningham

Studio: MGM

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube