Stalker (2020) What’s in a movie title? (Review)

What’s in a title? Well, for the 2020 indie thriller, Stalker, quite a lot. Just a cursory google will see the film lost under the weight of one of Russian cinema’s most well-regarded sci-fi epics from Andrei Tarkovsky. Then there is Neil Jordan’s 2018 film, Greta, which also goes by the same name – let’s not forget the iconic video game of the same name too. Needless the say, the title does the film no credit whatsoever. This is a shame, as, between all of those properties, Tyler Savage’s three-hander (with Christine Ko, Vincent Van Horn & Michael Lee Joplin) suits the moniker best.

In Savage’s Stalker, Andy (Van Horn) has moved from his home in Dallas to Los Angeles after a nasty breakup with a long-term girlfriend to start anew with his private tutor job. Unable to sleep on his first night, he googles dive bars on his phone. Drowning his sorrows, he notices Sam (Ko) sitting at the opposite end of the bar who has just been stood up for a date. Andy starts talking with Sam, and soon after the two connect. Sam asks Andy to join her back at her place – not to sleep together, just to fool around and hang out. Getting a ryde (which is a Uber surrogate) to her place, they are taxied by a very friendly driver, Roger (Joplin). The next day, Andy is out and about around town, getting a coffee, running errands, when who should he run into but Roger who makes a comment about there being a lack of genuine people in LA – off the back of which the two become friends and decide to grab a beer.

Concurrently, Sam and Andy fall into a much more traditional relationship. One thing leads to another, which ends with Roger being shunned for coming on way too strong, which he takes badly and begins psychologically torturing the Dallas native before maliciously pulling his life to pieces, bit by painful bit. An act that Roger describes as “fun” during a later altercation. Being a crime thriller, things ultimately get worse and more violent for all involved; leading to a final flurry of scenes that asks who is the titular stalker.

Conceptually, Stalker is a very compelling piece. While not a horror movie in the slightest, it could be described as social horror in the same way that Jordan Peele ascribes to his work. That is to say, Savage is using the movie as a vehicle to talk about modern social conventions and the vulnerabilities of #freshstart. Andy is moving to start afresh and like many others, when moving from a childhood hometown to somewhere completely new, your social defences aren’t what they possibly should be. The trusting ways of Texas are pounced upon in a (pardon the choice of words) savage town that has and will continue to eat people for breakfast. Through the antagonist, the director has manifested the worst of a megalopolis like Los Angeles into one single entity. This is a horror movie in the way that the director taps into the horrors that could greet a person in a brand-new town and how easily modern technology and life can be manipulated along these lines, ultimately depicting how truly powerless we are.

A scene with the police is particularly pertinent when discussing this thematic text. Not only do the two police officers seem inept when it comes to help, but they also seem so burned by such things happening so often that they have turned it into a game and are taking bets; utterly numb to the human cost.

You could make the case, then, that Savage’s Stalker is a nihilistic film sans hope or even light. That isn’t true. Even before getting into the character arcs and their performances, there is the visual identity of the cinematography. The film has been framed and shot as if it is from the perspective of someone unfamiliar with Los Angeles, in that a lot of the establishing shots and b-roll are made up of images that would be familiar to the locals but to fresh eyes, they couldn’t be more alien. A subtle but telling creative decision as it informs the character development and the importance of the relationships – plus the dog, Juice Box, is a very good dog indeed.

The way the relationship develops between Sam and Andy is key, especially when running concurrently with the decent of goodwill between Andy and Roger. To cut a potentially long story short, the romantic relationship between Sam and Andy is really sweet, touching and down to earth. Savage, Ko and Van Horn do an exemplary job of making you care about each and every one of the characters and their fates. All thanks to a series of authentic, down-to-earth performances. Anything showy or over the top is found in Roger, and, he is also played well but in the sort of way that you can’t wait to see him get his just deserts. A good villain only becomes good when you truly hate them and hate him you will.

Whether or not you get on board with Stalker depends entirely on the twist ending. While this twist is clearly in service of the subtext, the question remains that has to be asked of any film with such a climax. Is this film in service of a twist, or a twist in service of a film? Stalker plays upon many raw buttons in modern society and how intertwined they are with technology. My only real concern then is the same I have with so many other small-scale indie thrillers… does this do enough to rise above the sheer mass of other titles being released on a near-daily basis? And, with a title as commonplace as this – I am not so sure it does. This is a pity as there is something here that many will appreciate.

Thanks for reading Rob’s review of Stalker (2020)

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