Kevin Williamson has written and created some of the most heartwarming and horrifying movies and TV shows of the past few decades. After creating the popular teen drama Dawson's Creek in the '90s, Williamson wrote the horror films I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream, and he is also known for co-creating The Vampire Diaries. Williamson's work is always exciting, scary, and yet full of heart, as he writes incredible characters who care about each other while facing horror, threats, and danger on a regular basis.
Kevin Williamson also created the TV show Stalker, which had some big names attached but was only around for one season. There are many reasons why horror buffs should check out this show, from a scary and disturbing real story that inspired Williamson to the main characters and their motivations.
Stalker was only on the air for one season before getting canceled, and it aired from 2014 until 2015. Dylan McDermott played Jack Larsen, a detective at the LAPD who used to live in NYC. Maggie Q played Beth Davis, whose real name is Michelle Webber and who has a sad backstory: she's an LAPD Lieutenant and was once stalked. While there are many great teen horror TV shows, including The Vampire Diaries, Stalker is a solid show that focuses on adults whose lives have been changed by the people who stalk and torment them.
Stalker might not be a very popular show, and it didn't last very long, but the structure of each episode is something that horror fans will appreciate. Every episode focuses on a different person who has been stalked. In "Love Is A Battlefield," Andrea Brown (Jessica Tuck) throws a dinner party and someone breaks into her house. In "Fanatic," Nina Pressly (AnnaLynne McCord) is a famous actor who also sees a stalker come into her home, which is scary since she has had different stalkers over the years. The opening sequences of each episode follow a formula of showing these minor characters and the stalking incidents that they're dealing with, and this pulls viewers in each time, making them want to see if Beth and Jack can help these people and bring justice to the situation.
It turns out that Kevin Williamson created Stalker because of something that really happened to him. According to E! News, the LAPD Threat Management Unit is real, and Williamson worked with them. Williamson said that after working on Scream 2, "I had a zealous horror movie fan that just felt the need to break into my house and let me know what a zealous fan he was. It was scary. It wasn't to the extent such as Rebecca Schaeffer who ended up being a true victim of stalking and was murdered. She actually began the TMU. Her death allowed there to be the first stalking laws made in California."
Hearing this backstory brings some realism to the show. Stalking is unfortunately and tragically something that does happen regularly, and the show talks about important themes like how necessary it is to feel safe while going about daily life and how everyone deserves that. There are many campy and cheesy horror TV shows, like Ryan Murphy's amazing Scream Queens, but Stalker is grounded in reality and that's a good thing. It makes the show feel really genuinely scary since these are things that do happen IRL. The show has a relatively simple concept, but that's what makes it work so well, as it really leans into the horror of what these characters are facing while trying to live their regular lives.
Every episode of Stalker feels like a mini horror movie, and that makes the show feel special, even though it has been mostly forgotten. The writing of the show is also great: Kevin Williamson wrote Scream and The Faculty, a science-fiction film about teenagers, and while he is focusing on older characters here, they feel like real people and are worth watching. Beth is particularly great since she was stalked before so she's able to bring a genuine and important understanding to the work that she does now. Jack has his own demons to contend with since his ex and their son are in Los Angeles, which is his reason for moving there, and he sometimes looks at them from afar, proving that he's a stalker in his own way.
Fans of Williamson's movies and TV shows should definitely check out Stalker, although the show is tough to find on streaming services. Fans in the U.S. can find the show on FilmRise. It's a shame that there is no season 2 of Stalker as there is so much more ground to cover and it's possible to imagine the show continuing for several more episodes.