*This review has some spoilers
Jay Underwood must really be attracted to movies with the word STALK in the title. `SleepSTALKer,' `The STALKer' (a.k.a. `Fatal Affair'), and this one, `STALKed.' Don't be surprised if Underwood's next movie is called "Children of the Corn Stalked!" While `Sleepstalker' is a flawed but interesting slasher flick and `Fatal Affair' is a really good suspense thriller, `Stalked' is one of the most pointless and derivative of the genre of stalk-and-slash thrillers.
Underwood plays Darryl Gleeson, a disturbed individual that has been freshly released from the mental hospital and now lives with his cruel, domineering mother. Maryam d'Abo is Brooke Daniels, a widowed cafe owner and operator with a son named Mikey. In a heroic gesture, Darryl prevents Mikey's death in a forklift accident, and Brooke is eternally grateful, offering him a free dinner at her restaurant. Faster than you can say `dumb idea,' Darryl develops a huge crush on Brooke. And faster than you can say `been there, done that,' Darryl has taken numerous photographs of Brooke and is inserting himself in her life by dropping into her restaurant every time you turn around. Whenever someone tries to get in Darryl's way, he responds the way any red-blooded American male would: he murders them. And to ultimately win Brooke's affection, he does what any sensible person would do: he terrorizes her. When she finally figures out what is going on, it is too late for most of the secondary characters and for the bored viewer.
I loved Underwood in `Fatal Affair,' but here he plays the part in a conventional and uneven way. It's like either his or the writer's interpretation of the character was that Darryl is a smart madman. Indeed, the electrical gadgets he comes up with are clever (though not believable), but it is the manner in which Darryl goes about stalking and slashing that made me frown. Sometimes he does things so slickly that I thought he was not insane, as the deeds are done with such detailed and accurate precision as to suggest the mind of a person completely in control of himself. Many other times he comes off as a big child, bawling when he doesn't have his way or sloppily snubbing out someone on a whim. This is bothersome because the whole movie belongs solely to Underwood. Maryam d'Abo isn't requited to do much of anything with Brooke but play an innocent victim that stands around and watches, while Mikey is unstudied and vanishes for most of the movie until it needs him at the end to do something. As for the other secondary characters, I compare them to cardboard ducks in a shooting gallery. They all line up and walk by, quacking, until Darryl shoots them down in an easy-to-predict order. All this makes `Stalked' very dismal to watch, but it is made worse by the fact that it is misleading. In the beginning, we get a narrative (over real pictures of Underwood as a child) about the stalked and stalkers complete with stalking statistics. Stalking victims are `just like you or me.' But since most of the film is focused on Darryl (who is far from the common type of stalker) this opening leads us to believe we are going to watch something interesting and educational, not cliched and predictable.
I advise you to avoid this title and see Underwood really shine as a stalker in `Fatal Affair,' a much better example of his talents and a well-written, scary thriller to boot. `Stalked' is just another lousy cheap experience that is best left on the shelf. Zantara's score: 4 out of 10.
Jay Underwood must really be attracted to movies with the word STALK in the title. `SleepSTALKer,' `The STALKer' (a.k.a. `Fatal Affair'), and this one, `STALKed.' Don't be surprised if Underwood's next movie is called "Children of the Corn Stalked!" While `Sleepstalker' is a flawed but interesting slasher flick and `Fatal Affair' is a really good suspense thriller, `Stalked' is one of the most pointless and derivative of the genre of stalk-and-slash thrillers.
Underwood plays Darryl Gleeson, a disturbed individual that has been freshly released from the mental hospital and now lives with his cruel, domineering mother. Maryam d'Abo is Brooke Daniels, a widowed cafe owner and operator with a son named Mikey. In a heroic gesture, Darryl prevents Mikey's death in a forklift accident, and Brooke is eternally grateful, offering him a free dinner at her restaurant. Faster than you can say `dumb idea,' Darryl develops a huge crush on Brooke. And faster than you can say `been there, done that,' Darryl has taken numerous photographs of Brooke and is inserting himself in her life by dropping into her restaurant every time you turn around. Whenever someone tries to get in Darryl's way, he responds the way any red-blooded American male would: he murders them. And to ultimately win Brooke's affection, he does what any sensible person would do: he terrorizes her. When she finally figures out what is going on, it is too late for most of the secondary characters and for the bored viewer.
I loved Underwood in `Fatal Affair,' but here he plays the part in a conventional and uneven way. It's like either his or the writer's interpretation of the character was that Darryl is a smart madman. Indeed, the electrical gadgets he comes up with are clever (though not believable), but it is the manner in which Darryl goes about stalking and slashing that made me frown. Sometimes he does things so slickly that I thought he was not insane, as the deeds are done with such detailed and accurate precision as to suggest the mind of a person completely in control of himself. Many other times he comes off as a big child, bawling when he doesn't have his way or sloppily snubbing out someone on a whim. This is bothersome because the whole movie belongs solely to Underwood. Maryam d'Abo isn't requited to do much of anything with Brooke but play an innocent victim that stands around and watches, while Mikey is unstudied and vanishes for most of the movie until it needs him at the end to do something. As for the other secondary characters, I compare them to cardboard ducks in a shooting gallery. They all line up and walk by, quacking, until Darryl shoots them down in an easy-to-predict order. All this makes `Stalked' very dismal to watch, but it is made worse by the fact that it is misleading. In the beginning, we get a narrative (over real pictures of Underwood as a child) about the stalked and stalkers complete with stalking statistics. Stalking victims are `just like you or me.' But since most of the film is focused on Darryl (who is far from the common type of stalker) this opening leads us to believe we are going to watch something interesting and educational, not cliched and predictable.
I advise you to avoid this title and see Underwood really shine as a stalker in `Fatal Affair,' a much better example of his talents and a well-written, scary thriller to boot. `Stalked' is just another lousy cheap experience that is best left on the shelf. Zantara's score: 4 out of 10.