He lives on the fifth floor in the old building across the street. When night falls, there he is, staring at her, just a shadow without a face. This is what happens when you’re hot and take forever to put up curtains.
Such is the dilemma lovely Maika Monroe faces in Watcher. With her cute Kurt Cobain haircut and striking angelic features, she is a Hitchcockian heroine completely out of her element.
The decision she makes to uproot her American life for a duller one in Romania of all places is beyond misguided. It’s all because of her selfish, clueless partner. And he’s far from hunky.
He happens to speak the language fluently (she’s just starting to learn it) and he’s agreed to move here because of the opportunity for advancement. He’s a workaholic marketer barely home in their new apartment.
Left alone for much of the time, she wanders the streets and sites of beautiful Bucharest during the day and lollygags around at home during the night. She gave up acting for this?
The only excitement is uncertain danger in the form of The Spider, a mysterious serial killer with a predilection for decapitation. There have been several victims thus far, all young women, but just one survivor. Who’s next?
Her rather boring existence gets a lot more interesting when she decides to take in a joined-in-progress screening of Charade (subtle, guys) and there he is, moving up in the row right behind her, groaning a little like Michael Myers. But you can’t top the master.
And when she almost decides to give in to her once abandoned nicotine addiction (she eventually falls off the wagon), there he is again seemingly following her around in the grocery store. That’s not a good place to put jarred pickles, fellas.
Already wanting to go home, besides reverting back to those nasty ciggys, Monroe starts making questionable decisions, like waving at the guy one night just to make sure, yes, he is in fact stalking me. (Were you really that doubtful, toots?) Or later when she spots him wandering around town and starts foolishly stalking her stalker as she watches him feeding the pigeons and taking in a meal outdoors, even going so far as to follow him into his rundown building. (Why do you think he’s covering his face with that newspaper? He can see you, bitch!)
That last ploy backfires. He calls the cops on her and suddenly, there he is at her door, quietly pretending to be embarrassed, deliberately avoiding eye contact as they are forced by the same officer she contacted a little earlier to avoid such a scene to shake hands because you know, this was all a big “misunderstanding”. It will not be their last meeting.
“Fucking cops are useless,” a wise man says later on. But come on, this is just dumb.
Even dumber is the reaction of her man, who despite going back to the grocery store to look at surveillance footage (they can only get a sideview of his face which she quickly captures on her phone) and even going with that same cop to the weird guy’s door just to confront him, does not believe she’s in any danger. He even gets caught making a bad joke about it, in Romanian, right in front of her to colleagues at a cocktail party. Why exactly is she with this asshole?
It is not until the inevitable climax that he finally realizes, oh shit, maybe I should’ve believed her. As she looks straight at him in the last shot, I was hoping she would say, “I’m going home. Don’t call me.”
Watcher is a frustrating experience. It starts very slowly with a couple whose chemistry is non-existent and who aren’t particularly enthralling. Basically, not much happens despite the pretty scenery.
Then things start to pick up considerably during an at-home dinner when a discussion about The Spider reveals some disturbing details. Over time I started feeling that welcome sense of dread in my stomach, the same feeling I had throughout much of The Shining.
But at the same time I didn’t really care about many of the characters in Watcher and so we have all this unsettling atmosphere skillfully orchestrated through camera and score but no real investment in the outcome of the plot which you can easily predict anyway.
Monroe’s got charisma with a capital C but her character’s a total contradiction, an odd, incompatible mix of fear and chutzpah.
One minute she’s having a premonition about what could happen to her (a nightmare that becomes all too real), the next she’s a courageous amateur detective on an impromptu reconnaissance mission but without a disguise or a weapon.
Unable to sleep because of her anxiety (first, because of the move and then because of him), after getting someone else to confront her future attacker by pounding on and yelling at his front door without success, she herself knocks as well only to encounter the man’s elderly and harmless father instead. No woman would do this in the real world. They’d be hopping on the next available plane.
The villain is too much like Norman Bates, an antisocial, short-haired nebbish who reeks of obvious awkwardness, a screaming red flag that doesn’t seem to attract any attention beyond his doomed victims. Like Monroe herself, we know what’s in that bag. How come no one notices a smell?
He draws too much attention to himself and yet even the police are looking elsewhere. He looks the part but how does he stand out amongst a long cinematic legacy of woman-hating serial killers? How can he stand out when he’s not original? Plus, he seems more like a rapist than a murderer to me.
And he’s also hit-and-miss when it comes to his technique. Monroe makes friends with her neighbour, a former ballet dancer who she unexpectedly discovers is now a stripper in a strange underground club that is apparently located in the same building as The Spider. (By the way, how do they get tipped if they’re strutting around in glass cases? Is there a slot where you can shove in Euros?)
At some point, she goes missing and Monroe gets understandably worried. When we find out her fate, we’re wondering why the killer botches his aim with his next victim. Regardless, how is she able to survive for all that time having lost all that goddamn blood? Shouldn’t she have passed out already?
Writer/director Chloe Okuno was onto something here. She has a great visual sense, her cinematographer making highly effective use of existing European architecture but her story lacks imagination. She and her craftspeople can set a mood as well as Kubrick and his team but can’t pay it off like they could.
Watcher lacks dark humour, too, unlike the underrated Ginger Snaps. Its uneven pacing reminding you over and over again that it’s an indie film with a start-and-stop fetish. But Halloween is just as entertaining when it’s not terrifying you. It does not suffer from any inconsistency and we cared about everybody. What’s this movie’s excuse?
I’ll tell you. It’s an overdependence on False Alarms in between those slow-ass conversations and underwhelming horror scenes. I must’ve counted half a dozen over the course of the film. When it actually tries to be scary, like I said, it doesn’t know how to apply the exclamation point.
Despite being made by a woman, stripped down to its very essence Watcher is very much another recycled woman-in-danger thriller. Yes, much is made of Monroe’s alienation especially in the company of Romanians who don’t speak her language. But it’s The Spider who dominates, the only reason to pay attention. If only he lived up to the billing and the killing.
There’s a famous adage in fiction. If you introduce a gun at some point in your story, it ultimately has to go off. Bottom line, someone needs to pull the trigger. The second Monroe’s friend shows her her own pistol, Watcher has already spoiled its ending. It would’ve been more impactful if she aimed it at her boyfriend.
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Saturday, February 3, 2024
2:33 a.m.
THE WRITINGS OF DENNIS EARL 
Revisiting Hulk Hogan’s First Year As World Champion (Part Three)
In between his feuds with Orndorff, Studd and Schultz, Hulk Hogan would work short-term house show title programs with a number of other mid-card heels. He first wrestled Greg “The Hammer” Valentine in Cincinnati on April 21 where he only managed a DQ win. The following week in Baltimore, he had a more definitive victory by pinfall.
They would wrestle seven more times between June and October. Just like Dr. D, Valentine would be unable to even achieve a cheap victory. Hogan would win by countout in Niagara Falls in late June and pin The Hammer in every other match-up, although The History Of WWE website does not reveal what happened on August 28 in Glen Falls, New York.
Two of these pinfall victories were captured for posterity and aired on TV. On July 23rd, Hogan beat Valentine cleanly in Madison Square Garden as seen on the MSG Network and later beat him again at the Philadelphia Spectrum in a match that aired on PRISM and also appeared on the first Hulkamania videotape.
After Valentine won the InterContinental title from Tito Santana in September, the title was not on the line during a WWF title match in Ottawa on October 9. Unlike his latter matches with Randy Savage in 1986, Hogan never challenged The Hammer for the IC strap in title-for-title bouts, at least not in 1984.
But he did continue to defend the World Wrestling Federation Championship against a diverse group of opponents regardless of their standing in the company.
Afa and Sika, the original Wild Samoans who were the first three-time WWF tag champs, each had their shot at Hogan’s strap, just before their collective face turns. Afa was pinned three times, including at a March 7 taping of All-Star Wrestling which was broadcast five weeks later, while Sika lost twice in the spring (April 2nd in Buffalo and May 20th in Hartford). Sika would challenge him again during his last solo run beginning a couple of years later but would remain unsuccessful.
During his last full year as a villain, George “The Animal” Steele would have a brief feud with Hogan that began in the summer and concluded in the fall. Two of their matches were taped in St. Louis at the Kiel Auditorium. Thanks to the interference of this then-manager Mr. Fuji, The Animal won by countout during an August 10th taping. But Hogan would get a DQ victory during their rematch on September 1st.
With the exception of a count-out loss on September 30th, also credited to Fuji’s underhanded tactics, in Chicago, Hogan pinned Steele in the rest of their matches (July 22 in Minnesota, October 16 in Oakland, and the 21st in their blow-off battle in The Windy City). Speaking of Fuji, Hogan defeated him on September 28 in St. Louis which wasn’t recorded.
Besides working squashes and title defenses, Hulk Hogan would also be booked in a few tag matches. The most famous one from this period was recorded on August 26 in Minnesota. During his feud with The Animal, for one time only he aligned himself with his favourite broadcaster, “Mean” Gene Okerlund, who he met during their time in the AWA.
To prepare for their tag match against Steele and Fuji, a humourous training segment was later included in the first Hulkamania tape along with the bout. It consisted of Hogan breaking into Okerlund’s house very early in the morning to make him drink raw eggs and forcing the considerably smaller announcer to do rigorous training like carrying his 300-pound body while walking on stairs in the Met Centre.
The training paid off handsomely, even though Hogan did most of the work, as the babyfaces went over the heels in their tag match, much to the annoyance of Jesse Ventura who complained to the referee after their win, as reported by The History Of WWE website, which was excised from Hulkamania.
The Body would challenge Hogan himself in four different title matches, losing clean in three of them from September 8th to the 10th. He also wrestled a dark match on July 31st during a Championship Wrestling taping but thehistoryofwwe.com doesn’t reveal the result.
Ventura was supposed to challenge him far more often but he developed life threatening blood clots during this period, which The Body blamed on his Vietnam experience, which required hospitalization. Therefore, he was substituted by a number of other heels including Steele. Real-life friends at the time (until he learned about a decade later that the champion cockblocked his union organizing), throughout his time as a colour commentator, The Body often threatened to come out of retirement to face Hogan one more time, referring to him as a “paper champion”.
Although it was never shown in its entirety on The Best Of The WWF, Vol. 1 cassette, Hogan teamed for the first time with Andre The Giant for a handicap match against Big John Studd and the tag champs, Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch on July 15 at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, another regular taping location in the 1980s. In a match that The History Of WWE says went over 20 minutes, Andre and Hogan would go on to win by pinfall.
Hogan would also team twice with Mad Dog Vachon. On September 23 in Minnesota, they beat George Steele and Big John Studd, who filled in for an ailing Ventura. And on November 12 in Chicago, they defeated Steele and Mr. Fuji.
In Japan on May 16, Hogan teamed with Studd’s tag partner Ken Patera who would later challenge the champion in 1985. They faced Antonio Inoki and Tatsumi Fujinami which ended in a double count-out. In a six-man match four weeks later during that same tour with New Japan, the WWF Champion aligned for one night with Adonis and the Masked Superstar beating three more Japanese stars including Fuji’s old tag ally Mr. Saito. He also teamed up with the third Wild Samoan Samula on three different occasions which resulted in zero wins.
The only time Hogan didn’t get along with a partner in Japan happened on January 4, 1985. Although his side would win in a six-man affair against a team that included Inoki and Fujinami, both future winners of two separate and now defunct WWF mid-card titles as part of a talent swap arranged by both companies, after securing the victory, he brawled with one of his allies. It would be the first time he would see red against his future WrestleMania 2 challenger King Kong Bundy.
Hogan rarely wrestled on the weekly one-hour nationally syndicated WWF shows that mostly presented squashes and hyped local live events in specific markets. In fact, in 1984 alone he worked about ten times, not counting a couple of additional matches weeks before he won the title at the start of the year.
On March 6th, he taped his first of three matches with Tiger Chung Lee which would air a month later on Championship Wrestling. Then, on April 30, he beat him again in Oakland, California which was not shown on TV. (While the CW match was clearly a non-title affair, it’s not clear if he defended the title in the latter match.) They would square off one last time on August 6 during a Maple Leaf Wrestling taping in Brantford, Ontario. The title was not up for grabs and Hogan would go over clean once more.
A month earlier in the same location, Hogan pinned Hamilton, Ontario native Jerry Valiant, the former tag team champion with kayfabe brother Luscious Johnny, in Brantford, Ontario in a match that aired on the suddenly hated Georgia Championship Wrestling, the once adored NWA show on TBS that Vince McMahon Jr. had taken over but would quickly abandon after Crockett loyalists complained en masse about the change of ownership and what they believed were weaker matches. On September 29, Valiant would put Hogan over again in St. Louis in a fight that aired a month later on All-American Wrestling.
Hogan also defeated another former tag strapholder, Moondog Rex, later the original Smash from Demolition who teamed with Bill Eadie, the formerly Masked Superstar, before being permanently replaced by Barry Darsow, on three separate occasions: June 24 in Jerry Lawler’s territory in Memphis, the 25th in Kentucky and during a Maple Leaf Wrestling taping on August 29th which aired roughly two weeks later. Like Tiger Chung Lee, based on his status as a jobber, it’s not certain if the title was only defended during the untelevised live events.
Rene Goulet, yet another former tag team champion, faced Hogan during another recorded non-title match in Montreal. The Number One Frenchman, later an onscreen authority figure usually brought out to break up brawls involving younger talent, would lay down his shoulders after taking the leg drop, according to The History Of WWE website.
Just before Christmas, Hogan would have two more non-title enhancement matches to end the year. In London, Ontario during an All-Star Wrestling taping, he pinned the veteran jobber Terry Gibbs on December 16th. The following day, he disposed of Johnny Rodz, another longtime enhancement talent, during a Championship Wrestling recording. Both matches would air two weeks apart in the first half of January 1985.
In the second half of 1984, Hogan was supplied with new villains to conquer like Cowboy Bob Orton (their second match on September 7 in Long Island aired on All-American Wrestling a month later) and Nikolai Volkoff who he both defeated on two different house shows apiece. Both would continue to challenge him in the years to come.
He faced Kamala The Ugandan Giant three times. The only result listed on The History Of WWE website is a double DQ finish on August 30 in Hartford. They would also resume their title program two years later.
Over the Christmas holidays, Hogan would give his old friend and on-again/off-again tag partner Ed Leslie his first two shots at the belt. On Boxing Day, he beat him clean in Miami and again in St. Louis on the 27th. Long before he was The Barber, Brutus Beefcake would continue to get championship opportunities in the new year. He wouldn’t taste gold until teaming with Greg Valentine to win the tag straps that summer. Only bad luck would prevent him on two occasions from taking the InterContinental title, as well.
Another future ally who would never betray him would debut in 1984. Pretending to be a fan named Big Jim who sat at ringside for numerous weekly TV tapings, Hogan would give him a pair of wrestling boots and start training him for pre-taped vignettes. He would later be called Hillbilly Jim. They’d start teaming together the following year.
Besides working one-on-ones with Antonio Inoki in Japan (who defeated him for the IWGP Championship that he briefly held simultaneously with the consistently undefended WWF title) among other New Japan workers and a successful one-time title defense in Mexico against the 15-time Universal Wrestling Association champion and luchador legend El Canek, Hulk Hogan’s most important unbilled program would lay the groundwork for an explosive future during the last three months of 1984.
Having already encountered him as the mouthpiece for Big John Studd and “Dr. D” David Schultz at ringside, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper was now ready to step into the ring and challenge the WWF Champion himself. In vintage voiceover audio used in his recent A&E Biography, Piper declared that he wouldn’t “lay down his shoulders for anybody”. But that’s not true, according to thehistoryofwwe.com.
Piper and Hogan had six house show matches between early October and mid-November. During their first encounter on October 6 in the Boston Garden, Piper got a count-out win. But nearly two weeks later at the San Diego Sports Arena, Piper laid his shoulders down.
In Buffalo on the 30th of that month, Hogan would have to settle for a DQ win. In their return match at the Boston Garden on November 3rd, it was the champion who won by count-out, the same result he would achieve a week later at the University Of Utah.
In their final live event match of 1984 before taking a break and then starting the build to the crucial War To Settle The Score confrontation at MSG the following February, Hogan pinned Piper again on Veterans Day, appropriately enough, at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.
While it’s true that Piper never did a televised job for Hogan, he most certainly did so at two unfilmed live events in 1984. After their famous MTV match that ultimately led to the main event of WrestleMania, Piper and Hogan would continue to work together throughout 1985. Incredibly in 1986, they even became unlikely and reluctant tag partners in matches that emphasized their awkward, tense history. And in 1991, after he was attacked by The Undertaker during Paul Bearer’s Funeral Parlour talk show segment which would lead to The Gravest Challenge at the Survivor Series, there was The Rowdy One, along with The Macho Man, coming to his belated rescue.
During the first 12 months of his first reign as WWF Champion, although not entirely undefeated in title matches thanks to numerous count-out and disqualification losses, The Incredible Hulk Hogan was never pinned in North America. Japan, of course, was a different story, one that remains unacknowledged by WWE since all those defeats of various types happened for a different company.
As they started rolling out their first round of Coliseum Videos and extensive merchandising that year, Terry Bollea was front and centre in the WWF’s marketing scheme. In 1985, he made history as the first and only pro wrestler to make the cover of Sports Illustrated, a rare legitimization of a business then dismissed by the mainstream press as a deceptive joke.
But Bollea’s rapidly growing popularity was the real deal. And with MTV and NBC playing major roles in developing prime time and late night programming in the new year, not to mention the monster success of WrestleMania, his stock would skyrocket along with the WWF’s. In one year, despite rampant criticism from the likes of Dave Meltzer and others who were unimpressed with his in-ring work, Hulk Hogan was the face of pro wrestling. And it was only the beginning of an extraordinary ride as champion.
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, January 25, 2024
11:52 p.m.
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