The Watchers Review

The Watchers is a supernatural horror film based on a novel by A. M. Shine and serves as the feature film debut for Ishana Night Shyamalan, daughter of M. Night Shyamalan.

Mina (Dakota Fanning) is an American woman working in a pet shop in Galway. She’s tasked to deliver a golden parrot to a zoo in Belfast. When driving through Western Ireland Mina winds up trapped in a mystery forest and meets a group of people living in people living in a cabin. The leader of the group, Madeline (Olwen Fouéré) tells Mina mysterious creatures are watching them and tells the young woman the rules she must follow to survive.

Ishana Night Shyamalan is someone who has been fast-tracked to a filmmaking career. Wikipedia states she is 24 or 25, and she has already written and directed episodes of The Servant, which her father created. She also worked as a second unit on Old and Knock at the Cabin. Her father produced The Watchers through his production company. Ishana Night Shyamalan has more advantages than most filmmakers her age have had, but she still had to prove herself.

Ishana Night Shyamalan was her father’s daughter in terms of style. M. Night Shyamalan became known for making effective chillers and The Watchers could have fitted in his filmography. The Watchers had a constant sense of eeriness throughout the film, making it a lot more atmospheric than some recent horror films. Ishana Night Shyamalan was making a dark modern fairy tale that fitted with some of her dad’s films, especially The Village since both were about young women trapped in a forest and trying to avoid being attacked by monsters. The Watchers was a film that uses Ireland’s rich folklore with its creepiness and mystery and joins a wave of Irish set horror films (i.e. Boys From County Hell and Unwelcome).

Like her dad, Ishana Night Shyamalan knows how to frame a shot by using long takes and close-ups of faces. Shots of characters looking into the mirror were particularly effective. There was a great contrast in the colours due to the dark surroundings of the woods with the golden feathers of Darwin and white makings on the trees. Ishana Night Shyamalan followed her dad’s example with Signs since she knows not showing the monsters and only hearing sounds can be scarier.

However, Ishana Night Shyamalan does share some of her father’s worst filmmaking traits. The Watchers was a slow-paced film that might test some audience members. The dialogue was so exposition-heavy that it made the story and characters stilted, although the characters weren’t as robotic as in some of M. Night Shyamalan’s movies. The biggest issue in the story was the plot hole about how the cabin made anyone who was outside at night get killed by The Watchers and there’s no way out of the forest. Even when the film does come up with an explanation it doesn’t make sense. It’s a twist without logic. The film did introduce some ideas that didn’t lead anywhere, like a news report saying Ireland was suffering deforestation and hinted that there was going to be an environmental theme, but this led nowhere.

The Watchers had suffered from a critical bashing. It has a 30% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and 46% from Metacritic, and critics like Kevin Maher and Dylan Roth gave it one-star reviews. These scores are harsh, especially when The Watchers is compared to some more recent competitions like Night Swim, Imaginary, and Tarot. The Watchers had a lot more personality than those films and there was more creativity than the previously mentioned films. It had an atmosphere that was better than other horror films.

The Watchers was rated 15 in the UK. It gained the rating for ‘strong horror’ but it was a soft 15. There were only some flashes of violence and with a few mild cuts, the film probably could have earned a 12A rating. The film was oddly retitled to The Watched in the UK and Ireland which seemed like a pointless move.

The Watchers was a film that was brimming with atmosphere and potential. It was a decent debut outing for Ishana Night Shyamalan although she does have a lot to learn.