The fact that a stock intruder-in-the-house suspense scene that, in another film, would have been a minor exercise in routine string-pulling has now become the entire movie. The whole staging is so generic it begs the question: Where’s the gimmick, the midnight twist? And somewhere around the 45-minute mark, it begins to dawn on us: This is the twist. He hides in the closet and looms in the shadows, takes a bite out of an apple and returns it to the fruit bowl, pets the kitty cat and then pets our heroine while she’s sleeping. The stalker, in his cloak of “mystery” (i.e., is he the Moby character or the handsome uptight young Norman Bates hipster at the laundromat?), just does a lot of standard stalker stuff. Once that happens about half a dozen times, a menace-who-cried-wolf feeling starts to hover over the proceedings, and we begin to wait for something a little more interesting to occur. He’s an anonymous psycho in a hood, and his every furtive move is heralded by the kind of boom/clang! on the soundtrack that has been goosing audiences for decades. The cellist, whose name is Elizabeth (she’s played by the British-born Louise Linton), returns to her comfy place of residence in Portland, and it’s not long before the title stalker slips inside the house. He proceeds to give her a shoulder rub, in a Greatest Hits Of Sexual Harassment 1978 way, then leans right down next to her face to stage-whisper, “When you’re playing, really pay attention to your breathing… and really listen to your body.” And that, believe it or not, is the fun part of the movie. He’s played by Moby - yes, that Moby - in a gray sweater and professorial beard and horn-rims. A trembling blonde ice princess, who looks like she has never so much as attended a classical music concert, is sawing away at the Dvořák Cello Concerto (is the scene meant to be stylized, or did the director forget to tell her to move her fingers?). An early scene offers an amuse-bouche of midnight kink, even if it isn’t totally clear where camp leaves off and ineptitude begins.

45 minute intruder