Have you ever felt like someone is watching you? Maybe you’re lying in bed at night. Maybe you’re walking home alone. Wherever you are, it’s impossible to shake the feeling that someone unseen is looking at you in that very moment. They’re watching. They’re waiting. It’s a common fear, no doubt, and the origin of scopophobia, the persistent fear of being watched or stared at. Scopophobia, like autophobia or thalassophobia, isn’t just the anxiety innate in being watched, but a disproportionate fear that someone is watching. The horror genre for time immemorial has exploited the phobia, and here, we’ll be looking at ten of the best movies guaranteed to send your scopophobia into overdrive.
Watcher
One of the newest entries on this list, Chloe Okuno’s Watcher was one of 2022’s scariest feature debuts. Maika Monroe’s Julia relocates to Bucharest with her husband, spending her days wandering the city while the hubby is off working. Acclimation proves difficult as Julia begins to suspect a tenant across the street has been watching her all hours of the day. Trips to the theater or grocery store prove terrifying, with Okuno teasing out the menace of Julia’s unseen stalker. A terrifying slow burn, Watcher arrives at a gruesome and all too realistic conclusion.
Someone’s Watching Me
A clear progenitor for Okuno’s debut, John Carpenter’s Someone’s Watching Me (which finished filming two weeks before Halloween production started) is a masterclass in made-for-television terror. A sensational Lauren Hutton stars as Leigh Michaels, a television director who relocates from New York City to Los Angeles. Upon arriving, a tenant in an adjacent building develops a frightening obsession with her, watching her from across the street, going so far as to break in and place recording devices in her home. Carpenter’s signature suspense is on full display, and Hutton gamely manages the cat-and-mouse unease of urban scopophobia.
Eyes of a Stranger
Thematically and visually tied to Someone’s Watching Me, Ken Wiederhorn’s Eyes of a Stranger is an 80s slasher with bite. Lauren Tewes’ Jane is a newscaster in Miami. She lives with her blind and mute sister, Tracy (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Tracy’s condition is on account of a violent crime years earlier. Resultantly, Jane uses her platform to staunchly advocate for women’s rights, including passionate pleas to apprehend and stop a local serial killer. Jane begins to suspect a nearby neighbor might be the maniac, though as the wisdom goes, if you can see someone else, they can see you. So begins a cat-and-mouse as Jane accumulates evidence while faced with a violent, dangerous adversary. Culminating in a tense, apartment set piece where Tracy must defend herself while home alone, Eyes of a Stranger proves to be anything but another run-of-the-mill slasher.
Wait Until Dark
Aubrey Hepburn’s final Oscar nomination came with Terence Young’s Wait Until Dark, a home invasion thriller that remains one of the scariest ever made, even decades later. It doesn’t hurt that the film features one of the most famous jump scares ever committed to celluloid. Hepburn stars as Susy, a blind woman whose husband unknowingly brings home a doll full of heroin. The men after it arrive at Susy’s home, exploiting her blindness to trick her into giving up the doll. Hepburn is nothing short of incredible, slipping into genre territory with the kind of humanity and earnest terror rarely seen. She successfully puts the audience into her perspective, with Young further keeping audiences in the claustrophobic point-of-view of a blind woman unaware of where her pursuers are.
Skinamarink
Considerably more liminal, Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink might be divisive, though there’s no denying it’s among the most successful horror movies ever made that endeavor to return audiences to the innate terror of childhood. Siblings find themselves trapped in their home after dark as cryptic occurrences plague them. There are voices calling out to them, frightening visages, and the scariest telephone this side of Scream. Mileage will certainly vary, though in the wee hours of the night, it’ll feel like something awful has its eyes set on you.
Vacancy
Vacancy makes use of the snuff film myth better than most. A longstanding urban legend, snuff horror is often ludicrous—err, Shark Night 3D. Vacancy bucks the trend with a pair of engaging leads, a pitch-perfect setting, and a preference for old-school suspense over contemporary schlock. Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson are a couple on the fritz. Car trouble mandates a night at a roadside motel, one that isn’t quite as inviting as it first seems. The proprietors have been filming the murders of guests for a personal snuff collection. With no car and nowhere to run, the pair must outwit their captors to survive the night. A bit of a slasher, a bit tech-horror, Vacancy supersedes the sum of its parts as one of the greatest genre throwbacks this century.
When a Stranger Calls
Have you checked the children? Fred Walton’s When a Stranger Calls famously includes an entire middle act that’s more procedural, less horror (not horror at all) than modern audiences might expect. The classic scene wherein Carol Kane’s babysitter Jill Johnson is menaced by a caller inside the house is only about twenty minutes of the movie. But what a twenty minutes that is. Kane gives one of the all-time great horror performances as a woman slowly unravels on account of menacing phone calls. Those with scopophobia need not apply for this babysitting gig, nor the sequel When a Stranger Calls Back—it’s just as terrifying.
Black Christmas
Bob Clark did something special with Black Christmas. I don’t need to reiterate how this seminal slasher classic remains a core influence in the horror genre some 50 years later. Clark often shifts to unseen killer Billy’s point-of-view as he crawls around a sorority house, murdering some and calling others. It’s scopophobia to the extreme, a landmark in horror that remains one of the greatest of all time.
The Den
Do you have a piece of tape over your webcam? I hope so. If not, Zachary Donohue’s The Den will have you convinced by the time the credits roll. Melanie Papalia’s Elizabeth starts chatting with strangers on the titular Den (think Chat Roulette) for a sociological graduate research project. Innocuous enough at first, Elizabeth soon encounters a stranger with a strange obsession. Her webcam is hacked and her life is thrown into chaos as the stranger online continues to menace her. Terrifying in its cinema-verité approach to the erosion of privacy in modern society, The Den is as urgent as it is chilling.
Cachè
Michael Haneke of Funny Games made what is arguably his most chilling feature ever with Cachè (Hidden). Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche star as a well-to-do French couple whose lives unravel after anonymous tapes of them in their home start to arrive. Cachè is more psychological than outright horror, though the historical weight of where it leaves proves more frightening than the conceit of being filmed in one’s home first appears.
What do you think? Do you suffer from scopophobia? Which of these made you feel like the eyes of a stranger were watching you? Let me know on Twitter @ChadisCollins. And, most importantly, stay vigilant.
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