Thanks for the memories!

Sadly Over-hyped

Best movie ever!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Film director Sean S. Cunningham moved on from his great success with "Friday the 13th" to this more mainstream Hollywood thriller. It's nothing special, but it's not without its moments and pluses. It's a pretty sordid story, to be sure (adapted from a novel by Mary Higgins Clark), and some viewers may find it repellent at times. Others should have some fun with it, although it's never all that credible.Kate Mulgrew stars as Sharon Martin, a glamorous, big shot news reporter romantically involved with Steve Peterson (James Naughton), who's also in the news business. Two years previous, Steves' wife Nina (Joanne Dorian) had been raped and murdered in front of their horrified daughter Julie (Shawn von Schreiber). At the time, Julie had pointed the finger of guilt at a delivery guy, Ronald Thompson (James Russo), but the REAL culprit, Artie Taggart (Rip Torn), returns to extend his crime by kidnapping the two females and holding them for ransom in the vast and dingy areas beneath Grand Central Station.Cunningham brought along some of his F13 collaborators for this show, like casting directors Julie Hughes & Barry Moss, production designer Virginia Field, and cinematographer Barry Abrams. They do their best when capturing the sinister, overwhelming atmosphere of the underground settings. Suspense is minimal, but there is some violence here and there without much in the way of gore (for which, I'm sure, "Friday the 13th" detractors were grateful). One interesting moment has us manipulated into rooting for Rip when a gang of punks attack him in a public washroom, despite the fact that he's a VERY bad bad guy. The effective music score is courtesy of reliable veteran Lalo Schifrin.Rip is typically amusing in the villain role, and Mulgrew and young von Schreiber are appealing enough to maintain rooting interest. Much of the supporting cast is rather nondescript, but Naughton is good as the father, as is Barbara Baxley as a homeless woman. William Hickey and Vincent Spano can be seen in small parts.Screenplay credited to Earl Mac Rauch and "Friday the 13th" scribe Victor Miller.Six out of 10.

Seeking out "A Stranger is Watching" was somewhat of a new experience for me… I'm a big movie fanatic and I hardly read any books, but in this case I was familiar with the work of novelist Mary Higgins Clark before I ever saw a movie that was based on her writings. Clark certainly isn't the greatest suspense fiction writer in the world, as her books are often clichéd and predictable, but at least everything that I read from her was easy to digest, unpretentious and occasionally very tense (like for example the novels "I heard that song before" and "Two girls in Blue"). I haven't read the novel on which "A Stranger is Watching" is based, but it sure had an interesting synopsis that fits right into her area of expertise. The film is directed by Sean S. Cunningham, whose name is irreversibly linked to the slasher pioneer "Friday the 13th". Although often also quite sick and very exploitative, "A Stranger is Watching" is totally different and incomparable to "Friday the 13th", since the story centers on just a handful of people in a devastating situation, whereas "Friday the 13th" is simply about horny teenagers getting slaughtered. 9-year-old Julie Peterson traumatically witnesses how her mother fiercely gets murdered in her own house. Two years later, when an innocent person is about to be sentenced for the crime, the real killer returns to kidnap both little Julie as well as her father's new girlfriend Sharon. The psychopath, Artie Taggart, imprisons the two ladies in a hideout place underneath New York's central station and demands a 180k$ ransom. Julie's father and the police attempt to collect the money, while Sharon – as well as a couple of observing New York homeless people – battles her repulsive kidnapper. "A Stranger is Watching" is mostly tedious and not at all suspenseful, mainly because the identity and lame motives of the kidnapper are immediately revealed. Some sequences are quite grotesque, like for example when Taggart calmly walks across the crowded train station carrying a large bag on his shoulder with his sedated victims in it, but most of the time the film is overly talkative and dull. The surprise twists in the plot come across as forced and implausible and – as a viewer – you feel very little affection or compassion for the two damsels in distress. The killing sequences are vile and nasty, though, and the underrated Rip Torn depicts an extremely sadist & menacing villain, so "A Stranger is Watching" definitely holds some interest for 80's horror fanatics.

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....

Like watching any movie after reading the book, I felt expectedly disappointed. The plot was altered in many ways from the novel, which I deem to be much better than this mediocre adaptation of yet another Clark masterpiece. All of the movies based on Clark's books have been disappointing, because no movie can capture the intricacy and suspense designed by Clark, one of America's top mystery/suspense writers. I'm 16 years old and have never idolized an author's talent more than Clarks, and it is disappointing to see her novel made into a movie of this quality. Thoroughly disappointing.