Movie Review: The Watchers

Much has been made about “nepo babies” in Hollywood lately, though I don’t really see what the big deal is. Using family connections to get ahead is hardly limited to the entertainment industry nor is it a new concept. If you’ve got an advantage somewhere that doesn’t cause any harm to anyone, you should use it, especially if you’re talented enough to be in your chosen field anyway. Of course, sometimes people get ahead this way that genuinely don’t deserve their position, but that reality usually wins out and they tend to fade away. So, where does Ishana Night Shyamalan, the daughter of the well-known and somewhat divisive director M. Night Shyamalan fall on the spectrum? She definitely has an eye for striking imagery and knows how to generate suspense, but her feature debut The Watchers is lacking in some other key areas and she might be better served to avoid trying to emulate her father’s story structure quite so much in any future projects.

15 years after the death of her mother, Mina (Dakota Fanning) is hiding from her past working in a pet shop in Ireland. Her boss tasks her with delivering a rare parrot to a zoo in the countryside and so she drives off with the bird only to have her car and phone both stop working on a VERY desolate road (like how can anyone think this is the right route?) in the middle of the woods. Mina spots an ominous sign just off the road (path? trail?) and despite it looking like it was put there by a deranged cult, decides to wander in its direction in search of help.

She quickly finds herself lost amidst the trees when she spots someone in the distance. The figure runs from her and she chases after it, coming upon a nondescript concrete structure. The figure turns out to be a woman named Madeline (Olwen Fouéré) who shouts at her that if she values her life she should probably hurry inside. Already creeped out Mina runs into the building and Madeline seals the door. Inside, she is introduced to Ciara (Georgina Campbell) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan) and then told to quickly join them and line up in front of the mirror that occupies an entire wall of the room. It is explained that it’s a window from the other side and every night a group of mysterious entities gather outside to observe them and as long as they follow a few rules, the most important of which is to remain inside at night, they will be allowed to live. It doesn’t take long for the inquisitive and stubborn Mina to begin breaking rules however, as she tries to figure out just what is keeping them captive and how they might be able to escape.

Steeped in folklore, some of what happens in The Watchers can come across as very silly, but the Irish forests provide some beautiful and chilling atmosphere that usually prove effective at overcoming that. Shyamalan knows how to elicit fear from her audience, and stages a few very tense moments while smartly keeping the beings in the woods off camera as much as possible, only slowly rolling out glimpses as the story moves along.

The cast do good work with the material they’re given, but only Mina is really developed as a character and even then it’s in a superficial way. Taking after her father, Shyamalan feels compelled to include at least one “twist” in her story, and it’s fairly easy to see coming, leading to a final confrontation that is both cheesy and nonsensical. Despite its flaws, The Watchers is decently entertaining, and will easily keep audiences engaged, though they likely won’t think much about the movie after its over. Shyamalan clearly has talent as a director, and I would be curious to see what she does next, but I think she might be better to bring on a co-writer in the future. ★★