Watcher review – dread and doubt in gloomy Romania

The horror genre is littered with the bodies of female characters whose gut instincts were ignored, whose legitimate concerns were dismissed as hysteria. And for a while at least, it looks as though Julia (Maika Monroe, excellent) might just be the latest hapless character to earn a reassuring pat on the head – in this case from her husband, who dismisses her qualms about a figure lurking in the window opposite as a symptom of settling into their new life in Romania.

But this classy debut feature from American director Chloe Okuno crafts a teasing, uneasy sense of uncertainty, both about the character – is she a target? Or an aggressor? The stalked or the stalker? – and the Bucharest backdrop, with its gloomily imposing eastern bloc architecture and flaking layers of neglect. There are few genuine surprises, perhaps, but there are distinctive elements here which set the film apart, not least the way lack of fluency in a language (Julia’s Romanian is sparse to non-existent) creates a sense of siege.