TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

ferbs54 Thirteen years before sitting in a Star Fleet captain's chair and going up against such alien homicidal monstrosities as the Borg, the Kazon, the Hirogen and Species 8472, Kate Mulgrew did battle with a homicidal monster of a much more mundane nature, in 1982's "A Stranger Is Watching." Based on Mary Higgins Clark's best seller of 1977 (which, to be honest, I've never read), the film shows us what happens when 11-year-old Julie Peterson (well played by Shawn von Schreiber)--who had seen her mother brutally raped and killed two years earlier--is kidnapped along with the woman (Mulgrew) who is dating her widower dad. The thuggish lout (Rip Torn) hauls the pair to the underground labyrinth beneath Grand Central Station, a hellish world unto itself, where he caches them and schemes to acquire his ransom. The film is a fairly taut thriller, into which director Sean S. Cunningham manages to generate more suspense than he had two years earlier in the overrated "Friday the 13th." A background score by the great Lalo Schifrin adds immeasurably to the tension on screen, and all four principals--including James Naughton as Julie's understandably desperate dad--turn in fine performances. Unfortunately, the story is a tad too simplistic for this viewer's taste. We never learn anything about the nutjob Artie Taggart, other than the fact that he wants to raise horses in Arizona; his background, and why he's chosen this particular moment to kidnap Julie, remain mysteries. If only the film's screenplay were as multilayered as Grand Central Station itself seems to be! Still, despite the unfleshed-out nature of the picture's most interesting character, the film does manage to keep the viewer riveted. Kate, post-"Ryan's Hope" here but still hardly a household name, is always wonderful to watch, and looks quite beautiful in this early screen role. And while Artie Taggart may not be as relentless as one of the Borg, he still manages to give the old girl a pretty tough time....

lost-in-limbo After the hit that was "Friday the 13th", director Sean Cunningham would tackle another low-budget horror / thriller item. "A Stranger is Watching" is quite straight-forward (with its foreseeable plot turns, still it's well written), but while not as explicit (as say Friday) it nonetheless held a grimy and nasty approach and this can be attributed a lot to Rip Torn's boldly outstanding performance. He magnificently portrayed a robust, but cold and disturbing killer. The two female leads were not to be overshadowed either, as there is a stellar turn by the young girl Shawn von Schreiber and Kate Mulgrew is affably good too.After the traumatic ordeal of watching her mother brutally raped and killed, another horrific incident occurs when Julie is kidnapped along with her father's newswoman girlfriend. The kidnapper keeps the two stored deep in the underground passages of New York's Grand central station while waiting for the ransom to be paid. But Julie starts getting visions of what happened that night when her mum was murdered and it becomes clear that her kidnapper was the one who murdered her mother and not the one she accused that's shortly facing execution.Taken off a novel by Mary Higgins Clark, the material remains edgy and particularly compact with some running themes amongst its calculative structure. There's confidence in Cunningham's swift handling, as the atmospheric suspense is well timed (especially the cat and mouse sequences), the story is always on the move and the stark urban locations give it a gritty, down-to-earth vibe. Lalo Schifrin music is memorably multi-facet, never over-stating it but harvesting a chilling and racy kick that was dangerously sneaky. There's also durable support by James Naughton, Stephen Joyce, Barbara Baxley, Frank Hamilton, Roy Poole, Maggie Task, James Russo and a cameo by William Hickey.

merklekranz The script is way above average for a movie that is part exploitation, and part crime drama. My only complaint is that at times it seems a bit stretched, as in a few too many chases, and the acting varies from excellent,( Rip Torn), to very average,( Kate Mulgrew). The dark underground is used to great advantage, and there is genuine tension in several scenes. "A Stranger is Watching" is a must see for Rip Torn fans, as he is at his sleaziest. Obviously the "slasher" crowd has missed the whole point ,that this is a clever "suspenser", and the low IMDb rating reflects their misguided interpretation. Recommended for those who are looking for something different from the usual "slice and dice". - MERK

BillyBC (*** out of *****) Two years after directing the first "Friday the 13th" movie, Cunningham came back with this more serious (but only slightly less exploitative) thriller based on the novel by Mary Higgins Clark. "The Larry Sanders Show"'s Rip Torn (with that name, he was bound to play at least one role like this) plays a murderous psychopath who kidnaps a young girl(Shawn von Schreiber) and a TV news reporter (Kate Mulgrew, from "Star Trek: Voyager") three years after raping and killing the girl's mother. He keeps them in a smallroom deep in the subterranean bowels beneath Grand Central Station. There are several suspenseful attempted-escape and chase scenes throughout the last half of the movie before it ends in typical, bloody slasher fashion. James Naughton (from "The Paper Chase" and the "Planet of the Apes" television series) plays the girl's father and Mulgrew's boyfriend, and Barbara Baxley and James Russo also appear. Old, whiney character actor William Hickey pops up briefly as an ill-fated bum. There's kind of a weak twist towards the end of the movie, and, with the high body count, Cunningham was apparently still getting 'Friday the 13th ' out of his system, but, otherwise, this is pretty good.HIGHLIGHT: In an unexpected turn of events, Torn is attacked in a public restroom by a gang of thugs and beaten up. Even though he's the bad guy (and a nasty one at that), for a brief moment, you're tricked into thinking, `C'mon, Rip, kick their asses!'