Cast and Crew: Adrienne Barbeau, Charles Cyphers, Len Lesser
What It’s About: Leigh Michaels (Lauren Hutton) moves into a new city, a new job as a TV director, and a new ultra-modern apartment in a high-tech high-rise that faces a nearly identical building. Just as everything seems to be coming up Milhouse, Leigh begins receiving threatening phone calls and gifts from a stalker who she believes is living in the opposite building. Can Leigh figure out who the stalker is and find a way to stop him before it’s too late?
Why Watch it Today?: A major plot point in today’s film (an excellent thriller whose quality belies its origins as a TV movie) is the fact that Leigh can’t get help from the police until her stalker does something threatening-mere unwanted, persistent attention is not something they can do anything about. Sadly this was not something that writer/director John Carpenter invented, it was true until the high-profile murder of Rebeccca Schaeffer created a push for anti-stalking legislation. Schaeffer, who only recently got a big break starring in My Sister Sam with Pam Dawber, was murdered on this date in 1989.
Wow, this one’s an oldie I’d forgotten about. I see it pops up on DVD in a few places too. I think I can get my ancient VHS player to work again, so I may see if a friend has this on one of his compilation tapes he’s always bragging about…
I took mine out of Netflix and I would recommend getting it on DVD-like Carpenter’s Elvis movie it was shot in widescreen so it could be released overseas in theaters, and it is shot beautifully.
Ah, I almost forgot about that Elvis movie. It was pretty darn good (and I’m not the world’s biggest Elvis fan)…