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STALKED
Rating: 
USA. 1994.
Director – Douglas Jackson, Screenplay – Craig Hamann & Mark Evan Schwartz, Story – Pierre David & Cyndi Pass, Producers – Pierre David & Tom Berry, Photography – Rodney Gibbons, Music – Milan Kymlicka, Special Effects – Cineffects, Production Design – Charles Dunlop. Production Company – Image Organization/Republic Pictures/Allegro Film Productions III.
Cast:
Jay Underwood (Daryl Gleason), Maryam d’Abo (Brooke Daniels), Alex Karzis (Tony Sardi), Vivian Reis (Mrs Gleason), Lisa Blount (Janie), Tom Rack (Dr Bork), Robert Morelli (Sergeant Moretti), Tod Fennell (Mike Daniels)
Plot: Restaurant owner and solo mother Brooke Daniels is grateful when Daryl Gleason saves her son from a falling crate. She offers him a free meal at her restaurant in gratitude. However, Daryl is an ex-psychiatric patient and overreacts to Brooke’s gesture of friendship. Imagining that he is in love with her, Daryl starts obsessively following her, entering her house and threatening perceived rivals. When Brooke rejects his attentions, Daryl turns psychotic.
From title to execution, Stalked gives all the appearance of being a tv movie. It isn’t but it is not hard to mistake it for one of those production-line based-on-real-life efforts where a lone woman fights against a stalker. In most regards, Stalked is a routine effort, another of the formulaic psycho-thrillers produced by Pierre David – see also The Secretary (1995), Daddy’s Girl (1996) and The Nurse (1997).
The scenario and the progression of the plot are served up without any surprises. What is irksome is the fact that the stalker of the piece is clearly mentally disturbed and fanatically obsessive from the start. A far more interesting story would have cast Jay Underwood as an earnest and decent ordinary kid with a dependant personality and sent him over the edge as a result of naive misinterpretations of goodwill. The one worthwhile aspect of the film is Jay Underwood who gives a performance of both considerable charm and disturbing obsessiveness. It is at least fun to watch Underwood going through the script’s otherwise routine moves.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1999-2012
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