The R-Rated Disney+ Dark Thriller That Will Make You Look Over Your Shoulder
It’s really not uncommon for great movies to flop at the box office but still find their way to the hearts of both critics and audiences. 2022’s Watcher, a psychological thriller film, is one such film. Loved by the critics and the audiences, and after failing to recuperate its production budget, it quickly found itself on Disney’s streaming platform, Disney+.
The directorial debut of Chloe Okuno found its way to Disney+ through Hulu, thanks to the merger between the two platforms, which is still in its beta phase. This, unfortunately, also means that you’ll have to subscribe to both platforms simultaneously to watch the Watcher without any ads, at least for the time being. Oddly, we don’t see Microsoft charging us for the games Activision Blizzard King produces following the company’s acquisition by the tech giant. But Disney’s business practices have always been… different.
In Watcher, a young woman relocates to a new city with her boyfriend. As she navigates her unfamiliar surroundings, she becomes increasingly unsettled by the sense of being observed. Her anxiety escalates when she suspects a stranger in a nearby building may be watching her.
Isolated by language barriers and her boyfriend’s skepticism, she grapples with her growing paranoia and fear, leading her to question her own sanity. This psychological thriller delves into themes of isolation, surveillance, and the fine line between reality and perception.
Watcher was released in 2022 as a result of a collaboration between Chloe Okuno and Zack Ford. It was initially conceived as an indie project, but its narrative, centered on urban isolation with more than a smidge of voyeurism, caught plenty of attention, so the movie ended up being nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Afterward, several studios bought distribution rights for both worldwide and US releases, as well as theatrical releases and on-demand releases in the US.
Sadly, the theatrical release didn’t get much attention, and Watcher made a mere $3.2 million against its $5 million production budget. So, it flopped hard. However, the film’s ratings are fantastic; it has a pretty high critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a somewhat lower audience rating, which warranted attention from streaming providers. Interestingly enough, the movie found its way to Disney’s Disney+ streaming platform, where it currently sits as an unexpected guest at the dinner table against Disney’s vast library of family-oriented content.
The decision to host an R-rated movie on its platform is a sound business decision, stemming from Disney’s ambition to put its nasty little hands in as many pockets as possible, and if this calculated risk did anything positive, it was bringing Watcher closer to broader audiences. We salute Disney’s decision because we’re discussing a great piece of cinematography for those who enjoy a dose of fear and paranoia that remains long after the film’s credits have stopped rolling.
We wouldn’t like to paint the wrong picture; Watcher, just like any other movie, has its flaws, and the film faced criticism for its slow-burn narrative, which felt sluggish to some viewers. The poor performance at the box office surely is disappointing for those in favor of psychological thrillers and everyone else involved in the film’s production. Fortunately, it found new life on streaming, and considering that the streamers and studios basically lost their fight against SAG-AFTRA, it will probably continue to pay out residuals to actors and generate more monetary value over time.
For those interested in watching this fascinating piece of psychological thriller cinematography, the Watcher is currently available on Disney+ through Hulu.
