Stalker is about an actress (Sophie Skelton) who is followed into a hotel elevator by a familiar stranger (Stuart Brennan). It is directed by Steve Johnson and written by Chris Watt.

The acting is good. This is a bottle film. It follows two people stuck in one place, and you will rarely see anyone else. The two major characters play against each other well. The bulk of the experience centers around the character exploration of its two leads, and as such both characters show a lot of dimension. This is Stalker‘s biggest strength. There is one major relationship here, and it is as strong as the relationship between two strangers trapped in an elevator can conceivably be. The dialogue is alright.

I find the pacing to be problematic. Stalker is not a film that stays the same. At first, it focuses on character exploration and later it focuses on a character’s explanation. After it shifts gears like that, it disperses all momentum. There is a mystery here, but it isn’t spotlighted. It’s in the background. Stalker chooses to focus much more on the characters. This isn’t a heist film. This isn’t a Sherlock or Agatha Christie mystery. It is all very simple. Before it reaches this point of explanation, you will receive all the information you will ever need to put the pieces together. It isn’t shy about feeding that information to you. If you don’t figure things out by the time this change happens, you will understand everything you need to after one or two sentences. I am not convinced that there is a good reason for events to be explained in such depth other than to extend the runtime. I believe that if they wanted to focus that much on the answers, then they needed to focus so much more on the mystery. On the topic of mystery, I think it is worth saying that I didn’t find the experience to be very mysterious. There are a few moments of thrills that stem from two people being stuck in an unpredictable elevator. I felt intrigued more than anything. I was motivated to continue due to a curiosity fostered by the characters and the performances that brought them to life.

Stalker looks great. It has excellent lighting. The different settings all have a unique atmosphere. The streets are dark and foreboding. The hotel is cozy in a dive bar sort of way. The elevator is dank and grungy. The lighting perfectly complements every setting. There are moments of particularly cinematic decisions that pop up here and there. The audio is wonderful. From the very start when the rain is falling you’ll know that Stalker is going to sound excellent. There are rare instances of practical effects. They are simple, but they work well.

Stalker is a character piece with a dark edge. It lays an incredibly strong foundation for itself, but watching it is somewhat like watching someone with a knife in their hand menacingly raise their arm and then freeze for fifteen minutes. By the time that knife finally comes down, their target is long gone. This doesn’t mean it isn’t worth watching. If you like to delve into the minds of dangerous people, Stalker will give you plenty of content to chew on.

7 out of 10