MOVIE REVIEW: Stalker (2020)

Formerly known as Blinders, this neat little film feels like a Netflix special. It started with the dreaded ‘found footage’ style, but that was just to introduce the main character, Andrew. Andy to his friends, who he has less and less each day. Why this is we have to wait to find out, and as this is more twisty thriller than a straight-out horror, the reasons can be wrapped up in mystery, until the conclusion where things will go boom.

We can say that Andy is escaping his former life, and trying to find himself in L.A. where the smog might soften the edges a little. He has his life coming together quite nicely, meeting an attractive girl pretty early on, and finding a new friend to confide in. As we know, this is a film with an agenda, so we expect things to go wrong along the way, and the new ‘friend’ turns out to have sinister motives, in fact he just wants to ‘’have fun’’. When a man bakes up a cunning plan to get into your apartment only to piss into your orange drink, you know this is going in a bad direction. As Andrew’s life, and identity, is taken hostage, we happily go along for the ride, and who could hate a guy who names his dog ‘juicebox’?

Stalker is a film where it does what it says on the tin, a million 90s thrillers had this plot, and the surprises were rarely that surprising. After Fatal Attraction, audiences started to want more, and the deluge that followed may have put you off the genre, back then. Time has passed and this kind of film is not that often seen nowadays. It won’t change your life, but it does build its formula from the ground up, and its base may seem familiar, yet by the end you might not have entirely guessed which direction you would be dragged in. And for that you have to give some praise.

The characters are nicely set up, making you want things to resolve positively, and the ride is guaranteed to be a pleasurably bumpy one. So give it a shot, hold tight, and watch out for what’s around the corner.

6/10

Stalker is available to stream now via VOD