Traquée

Jay Underwood is handsome, rich, and intelligent. He has all the qualities that a woman would want in a man. His only flaw is that he is batnuts crazy. Underwood gave an amazing performance. Why he chose to obsess over a woman who had a failing business, no personality, and a kid is beyond me. This comedy was worth the ten times I watched it.

"Stalked" is pretty good.Of course it's nothing really special-you have seen it all before.However "Stalked" is a pleasant surprise:a low budget thriller that's well-acted,well-directed,and-above all is pretty scary.Jay Underwood is rather convincing as a lonely psycho,and Maryam D'Abo is also pretty good.The only drawback is a crappy ending,which ruins otherwise solid film.7 out of 10.

Stalked (1994) is the kind of movie you neither hate nor love. It has a witty appeal that forces you to continue watching, but a feeling of "yeah, right!" We must confess, Daryl the stalker had his gig down and sure knows how to ruin a girl's life (that's the good part), but Brooke the stalked (played by Maryam D' Abo) needs to find another career. We're not saying that she's a bad actress, she just has a bad screen presence. Her son we cannot blame because his lame routine of throwing a ball at Daryl can only be blamed on the script-writers (or whomever wrote this nugget). We can't find any notation of this flick in any of the film guides or on the internet so it tends to make us believe it was either a mistake that the film company is trying to rectify (Republic Pictures) or it's a rare gem. All in all, this 95 minute film is worth watching once.

Five minutes into "Stalked", a question popped up in my mind: who is this Jay Underwood and why have I never heard of him before? His performance here wouldn't be out of place in a major-studio film...the way he switches from "pleasant kind of guy" mode to "totally deranged psycho" mode, and vice versa, seems effortless. He single-handedly lifts this otherwise predictable thriller slightly above the norm. And his performance seems even better when you compare it to the uncharismatic one given by Maryam D'Abo, whose only career distinction up to now has been that she played the (arguably) least appealing Bond Girl of the entire Bond series. Oh, and another question: did they actually bother to get the rights to Bernard Herrmann's original "Psycho" score? (**)

Just as another viewer wrote, this is not a great film but surely one that catches your attention once you start watching it. Actually I've watched it twice, on TV. Jay Underwood plays one of the most memorable and yet entertaining psychos I've seen and surely adds to the film. Myriam D'Abo (blessed and cursed with a Rosanna Arquette look(-alike) )is OK and Alex Karzis is quite good as Tony. Nothing truly original in the script except for a couple of gruesome scenes of Daryl hurting himself to prove his love...