We all know the feeling of being watched. That prickly chill lodging itself in your spine and crawling under your hairline, leaving you absolutely certain that unseen eyes are invading your supposed solitude. In today's technology-saturated market, these suspicions don't necessarily cross the line into paranoia. Professional quality surveillance equipment such as infrared light sources and cameras small enough to fit in cell phones are now available for quick and easy purchase, and their sales thrive due to a rock solid customer base. Yes, I'm talking about stalkers, the sweating, pasty-faced perverts who peek in your windows and skulk in the dark alleyways behind your apartment, swiping underwear from your laundry bag and feeding strychnine-laced Milk Bones to your Springer Spaniel. They sneak into your private spaces, install their newest toys and then sit back to watch undeterred, ripping their beady eyes from your most intimate moments only to wipe the heavy breath condensation from their TV screens. Thanks to films like Eric Nicholas' disturbing "Alone With Her," you can now spend eighty minutes squashed in tight quarters with one such bastion of emotional stability, watching his shuddersome actions as closely as he and his cohorts may be watching you.
The film, shot entirely from cameras carried, installed or otherwise operated by Doug (Colin Hanks, looking every bit the flabby, squinty-eyed sociopath), follows its antihero's stalking M.O. from beginning to horrible and inevitable end. His chosen victim, Amy (Ana Claudia Talancon) excels in her portrayal of the quintessential everygirl; pretty but not unattainable, intelligent but not intimidating, creative but not tortured. As we watch her go through the motions of daily life via Doug's handheld camera, we discover that she enjoys drinking coffee before work, walking her Corgi in the park, going dancing on weekends with her best friend and painting in her massive, envy-inspiring (even with the hidden cameras) apartment. Ok, we get it, she embodies half the twenty-something women in the Northern Hemisphere, with the exception of a thousand or so extra square feet of living space.
As we watch Doug expertly break into said apartment to plant his camera arsenal, the audience can almost identify with his determination and singleness of purpose (though it's never explained why such an obviously savvy guy would film himself committing acts like breaking and entering). At first, his enduring devotion is sympathetic; he learns her favorite movies, researches her preferred bands, bonds easily with her dog and rushes to her side when she injures her foot in a household accident. Then come the increasingly stomach-churning moments (watching her shower) spiraling into the purely awful (watching her masturbate) to the unforgiveable (dragging Q-tips coated in poison ivy across her bedsheets following her date with another suitor).
In the end, after spending over an hour cringing at Doug's brutal and systematic invasion of Amy's life, I found myself disconnected from both characters, and was almost apathetic during the horrifying climax (to be fair, my detachment may have been a necessary defense mechanism demanding that I curl into an emotional happy place to prevent full-on hysteria). While ably written, cleverly edited and extremely well-acted, the film doesn't offer viewers much more than eighty minutes of acute discomfort followed by several hours of nausea. Though its anti-Hollywood ending is arguably refreshing, Nicholas' work offers none of the campy thrills or unsubtle warnings delivered by maintream counterparts such as Sliver or stalker classic Fatal Attraction. Ultimately, if you fear becoming the unlucky one in every twelve women in this country who is stalked, there's really not much, if anything, you can do about it. All of which begs the question: why make a film like this, other than to promote paranoia and pepper spray sales? Any educational value concerning stalking itself is slim at best; besides an opening message citing a few statistics and a clumsy scene showing Doug purchasing sophisticated surveillance equipment without a permit, "Alone With Her" doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know: stalking is horrible, easily accomplished for those sick enough to try it, and can result in tragedy. Not exactly a shocking revelation for anyone who reads the news.