In this 1978 TV movie, Lauren Hutton plays a TV director who moves to Los Angeles from New York after a breakup. Her window-laden new apartment in Arkham Tower is the perfect place to recover, and to acquire a stalker armed with a telescope and a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Her nemesis harasses her in several ridiculous ways such as trying to scam her with a fake free vacation, and then sending her stuff she would use on this non-vacation. Of course, she doesn’t believe this contest crap, but then disbelief becomes the theme of the film as, among other things, stalkers weren’t taken seriously by the police in the 1970s. And besides, the police don’t have any good suspects, because almost every man in the movie acts like a creep.

Someone’s Watching Me was directed by John Carpenter, and although he was hired for this project rather than it being his original vision, you can already see his signature in elements such as: a victim being chosen at random. I also noted the inclusion of tape recorders, which played a huge part in my favorite scene in The Fog (Stevie Wayne’s tape player starts making demonic threats). Speaking of Stevie Wayne, Adrienne Barbeau is Hutton’s co-star, and excels as the coworker who becomes a ride-or-die friend.

The main Carpenter signature I noticed is the idea that “no one believes you,” which is also a huge part of his 1978 movie Halloween. Having NPCs question the credibility of the protagonist is always an effective way to hit the audience upside the head with dramatic irony. The stalker even writes “no one believes you” on a steamed up surface in Hutton’s bathroom! 

Hutton’s character is a goofy person who cracks jokes that other people don’t always get, which makes her both relatable and a great choice to carry an entire movie. I mean that! I liked her in Once Bitten, but didn’t like her much in Gator, so I think her performance depends on the director. And isn’t that the case for most actors. 

Although the workplace scenes are much less important than the apartment ones, the little bit we did get of Hutton’s character at work was fascinating, because her job interview is…being thrown into a live broadcast with no preparation, and she works some directing magic. I also felt as if her TV job and single status made Someone’s Watching Me like a bizarro version of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. A 70s woman making it on her own, living in an apartment, getting lots of unwanted attention from deluded guys, having one good woman friend? You can see it, right?

I also liked the way the movie handled Barbeau’s character coming out as a lesbian. As they were getting to know each other, swapping dating stories, she just went ahead and used the “she” pronoun about her last romance. There was a moment of “Oh really,” from Hutton, a reassurance from Barbeau that she wasn’t her type, and that’s that.

And speaking of dating, with all the guys acting aggressively towards Hutton in Someone’s Watching Me, it is notable that the one who she actually dates, a college philosophy professor played by David Birney, is sitting at the bar when she approaches him.

But with minor spoilers, I have to admit that the story seems to have a couple of quirks. I don’t think we ever found out what exactly happened to Barbeau, and I felt like the stalker was a completely new person who was never on the list of suspects. I wasn’t sure if he was the leasing manager who showed Hutton the apartment at the beginning of the film (and who was really not getting any of her jokes) or just some guy who happened to look in her window. But then, that’s all part of Carpenter’s whole thing, the unexplainable villain. 

I think it was cute that the name D.G. Hill came up at one point as a character name (I can’t remember which character but it’s in my notes to tell you about it) because it must refer to Carpenter’s longtime collaborator Debra, and the Lovecraftian name of the apartment building was a nice touch for horror fans and Batmen alike. The many shots of the reel-to-reel make it look like a face with huge eyes, and I hope this was intentional. Can you think of other ways Carpenter used technology in a symbolic way? Let me know in the comments.

I enjoyed the experience of watching, well, viewing, Someone’s Watching Me, and would love to encourage other Carpenter fans to check it out as well. It’s on Tubi, if you’re interested. If you’re looking to get into older TV movies, Someone’s Watching Me is a fine place to start because it is available as such a great-looking upload, whereas many TV films of the 70s are only available as fan uploads from muddy tape recordings the uploaders made themselves. More interest in classic TV movies means more copyright holders clean them up and re-release them.

Don’t forget to keep your curtains closed when you’re taking off your clothes, bye bye!