The Watchers (Known as “The Watched” in UK/Ireland) is a mystery horror written and directed by Ishana Shyamalan, the daughter of M.Night Shyamalan. This is her feature debut. The movie stars Dakota Fanning as “Mina” who is stranded in a strange Forrest when her car breaks down on an unfamiliar road. She follows a woman named “Madeline”(Olwen Fouéré) who hurries her into a nearby bunker like building she calls “The Coop”. Inside she meets two other strangers Ciara (Georgina Campbell) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan). Madeline explains that it is impossible to escape the forest and that every night they must return to the coop where they are observed by mysterious and menacing beings. Mina is determined to find a way out and to find out who or what is observing them.
Chip Off The Old Block
The Watchers is another film with an interesting premise that falls short on delivery. It’s interesting to see how much Ishana Shyamalan takes after her father. Like most of his films, the movie throws out a mystery right at the start. Then it gives you the expectation for twists, challenging you to figure them out. Like many of M.Night’s films, those reveals underwhelm and/or are predictable. That’s not to say the Shyamalan formula can’t work, but the success rate is low. Like her father, Ishana seems technically competent and has a good eye for visuals. The problem for this story is that the main twist is particularly predictable and the characters are especially stupid. On the positive side it lands a similar running time to most of M.Night’s work at around an hour and forty and keeps a relatively quick pace.
It’s interesting to note that there is one notable change between the movie and it’s source novel. I can’t reveal that without hitting spoilers but effectively the big reveal of who the watchers are is totally different. The strange thing is from what I can tell (I’ve only read reviews/synopsis of the novel) very little else is changed. But then I recall M.Night did something similar with Old. I don’t think the change improved the story but to be honest neither twist seems especially good. As far as the smaller twists go though, that is far too predictable. The movie runs into a lot of the pitfalls of the science fiction trope strangers trapped in a location. Why does it take the protagonist turning up for anyone to figure anything out? Why do people blindly trust the person that was there the longest?
Conclusion
I had to laugh early when after running around trying to escape for half the day, the protagonist is show the “Point of no return” markers. These are the furthest you can go and have time to return before dark. But heading there part way through the day and then having a conversation at the location make it pretty clear you could definitely go beyond that and still make it back. Especially if you ran instead of casually walked. It made no sense, but no one questioned the bad logic. That sort of sums up the film really. It does have something going for it though as far as the atmosphere is concerned and the fast pace means it isn’t boring. I am going to write this one down as a reasonable start for a first time director, but ultimately not a recommendation. 5/10
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