The Watchers (2024) Warner Bros./Horror RT: 102 minutes Rated PG-13 (violence, terror, some thematic elements) Director: Ishana Night Shyamalan Screenplay: Ishana Night Shyamalan Music: Abel Korzeniowski Cinematography: Eli Arenson Release date: June 7, 2024 (US) Cast: Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouere, Oliver Finnegan, Alistair Brammer, John Lynch.
Rating: **
It’s cool that Ishana Night Shyamalan wants to follow in her father’s footsteps and make movies. Look how well it worked out for Sofia Coppola. Unfortunately, Ishana is no Sofia. She has a lot to learn about filmmaking as evidenced by her debut feature The Watchers. It’s an uneasy mix of horror and fantasy that doesn’t really work as either. In fact, it’s pretty lame.
Dakota Fanning (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) stars as Mina, an American woman living in Ireland. She blames herself for her mother’s death 15 years earlier; consequently, she’s estranged from her twin sister Lucy back in the States. Hmmm, Mina and Lucy, fans of Dracula ought to recognize those names. Don’t look any deeper; there is no connection or obvious significance.
ANYWAY, Mina gets herself into a real bind when she ventures into a mysterious forest after her car breaks down on a lonely road. She immediately gets lost and has no choice but to take shelter in a bunker (“The Coop”) with three other inhabitants, Ciara (Campbell, Barbarian), Daniel (Finnegan) and an elderly woman named Madeline (Fouere, Tarot). They’re not alone out there, not exactly.
Every night, they are observed through a two-way mirror by a group called “The Watchers”. Who are these Watchers? They don’t know. What do they want? They don’t know that either. All they know is that they’re trapped there with no apparent way to escape. Mina, of course, turns out to be the proverbial fly in the ointment.
I’m going to start by pointing out a few good things about The Watchers. It’s not a long list, so this won’t take very long. Some of the Irish scenery is absolutely gorgeous. Its atmosphere is sufficiently eerie. It has a decent cast, but their performances fall short, all except for Fanning whose hollowness serves her character well. The story idea is a pretty good one; it’s just poorly written and executed. Ishana can never decide on a consistent tone and it shows in the film’s general unevenness. It has some interesting ideas, but Ishana’s screenplay fails to develop them beyond a superficial level. The movie is about as deep as a puddle.
Worst of all, The Watchers is never scary. There are no effective “BOO!” scenes and the CGI is simply awful. The creatures terrorizing the characters are boring and ordinary (for the genre). Their origin is kind of interesting; it’s too bad the accompanying film isn’t. In the end, The Watchers is just another weak PG-13 horror movie for children not yet old enough to see R movies on their own. I’m not even sure they’ll like it.
