Interview (Video): Chloe Okuno

A conversation with the co-writer-director of the thriller Watcher.

Watcher was one of my favorite movies from the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Plot summary: A young American woman moves with her husband to Bucharest, and begins to suspect that a stranger who watches her from the apartment building across the street may be a local serial killer decapitating women.

There aren’t many twists in the plot, rather the story is more of a character piece, tracking the psychological transformation of the Protagonist (Julia played by Maika Monroe) as she evolves from denial to acceptance that there is someone watching her, then from defensive to offensive. The latter spins the meaning of the movie’s title, where the person being watched becomes a watcher herself.

Here is an interview with Chloe Okuno who co-wrote the screenplay (with Zack Ford) and directed the movie.

You may remember Monroe from her starring role in Follow Me. While Watcher is more of a thriller and Follow Me a horror film, there is considerable overlap in the emotional terrain covered by the Protagonists.

Here is a trailer for Watcher:

The setting of the movie (Bucharest) is a nice touch. Dark and gloomy with looming tall apartment buildings, windows everywhere, Julia as a fish out of water is left pretty much all alone to deal with the situation (her husband is under enormous pressure to prove himself at work and as a result is gone for hours on end).

Here is the movie’s website. LINK. The movie launches in select theaters this weekend. Definitely worth a… wait for it… watch.

For 100s more interviews with screenwriters and filmmakers, go here.