Someone's Watching Me!
- For the song, see Somebody's Watching Me.
| Someone's Watching Me! | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Written by | John Carpenter |
| Directed by | John Carpenter |
| Starring |
Lauren Hutton David Birney Adrienne Barbeau Charles Cyphers |
| Music by | Harry Sukman |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Richard Kobritz |
| Cinematography | Robert B. Hauser |
| Editor(s) | Jerry Taylor |
| Running time | 98 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Warner Bros. Television |
| Release | |
| Original network | NBC |
| Original release | November 29, 1978 |
Someone's Watching Me! (also known as High Rise) is a 1978 American made-for-television horror film written and directed by John Carpenter and starring Lauren Hutton and Adrienne Barbeau. The film was made immediately prior to Carpenter's theatrical hit Halloween. The film was produced by Warner Bros. and aired on NBC on November 29, 1978.
Synopsis
A woman named Leigh Michaels moves to Los Angeles, and finds a job directing live television. An older man sees her on the balcony of her new apartment, through a telescope. He enters her apartment when she's out, and begins to terrorize her with phone calls and strange gifts from a fictional company, "Excursions Unlimited".
Michaels reports the harassment to the police, but because no threat has been expressed, they take no action. The gifts include a telescope, but Michaels does not understand she is being watched until the second half of the film. With the help of co-worker Sophie and boyfriend Paul Winkless, she attempts to take action against the voyeur.
Cast
- Lauren Hutton - Leigh Michaels
- David Birney - Paul Winkless
- Adrienne Barbeau - Sophie
- Charles Cyphers - Gary Hunt
- Grainger Hines - Steve
- Len Lesser - Burly Man
Details
Among fans, Someone's Watching Me! is often referred to as "the lost Carpenter film" due to its scarce availability on home video for many years. Warner Bros. eventually released the movie on DVD on September 25, 2007.
Carpenter worked with Adrienne Barbeau, whom he married in 1979, for the first time when making Someone's Watching Me!. Barbeau later starred in The Fog (1980) and had a supporting role in Escape from New York (1981).
Carpenter was nominated for the 1979 Edgar Award of Best Television Feature or Miniseries for the film.
The television station Leigh Michaels gets a job at is named KJHC. The last three letters are a secret wink to the writer and director's full name: John Howard Carpenter.
NBC promoted Someone's Watching Me! as a "Tales of the Unexpected special," implying that the film was related to the 1977 NBC television series Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected (known in the United Kingdom as Twist in the Tale). In fact, Quinn Martin and Quinn Martin Productions played no role in the making of the film, which was unrelated to the series.[1]