The Watchers

This review may contain spoilers!

 

The Watchers follows Mina, a young pet store clerk who is stranded deep in the woods after her car breaks down. As night falls, she takes shelter in a mysterious bunker alongside three strangers, where they are observed by mysterious creatures who roam the woods at night.

 

I really liked how this film established intrigue, the dark twist of the forest magics coupled with mysterious entities really leads the charge with a strong premise. I have to admit that the more our protagonists pushed, the more I wanted to know as well. This might be a hereditary trait for the Shyamalan family, as the need to drive the story with a twist works quite well in most of Ishana's father's films too. You also feel those moments of danger very strongly, the rush for safety and the inability to access it in some scenes drove this film a little further. Moments like a mad dash to the bunker, a seemingly dead husband calling out in the dark of night or the bunker being violently attacked all set things right on edge. I also think the choice of mythology inspiration/monster for this horror film is quite a neat one, particularly early on.

 

One thing that excites me about Ishana Shyamalan as a director is the visual style she crafts through this; the whole film is very striking, with bold shots containing deep colours. This movie is quite a contained affair, so it was a thrill watching this film feel positively gothic in style at times, a neat mixture of tone and setting. The score for the film will really set you on edge when it's going, and I loved the soundtrack and how it weaved in a real variety of pieces.

 

Alistair Brammer, who played John, really leads us into this film well; Brammer is a very capable individual who is showing a very intense fear that drives his actions. John Lynch, who played Kilmartin, gets to deliver moments of exposition in a way that intrigues for a nice change; Lynch makes this mysterious role quite morally duplicitous, and I found that late addition to be really fascinating.

However, the best performance came from Dakota Fanning, who played Mina. This is quite an eccentric protagonist, she has a very murky depth to her that Fanning portrays nicely. We get the sense there is something a little askance with Mina from the start of the film; she is distant, has strange conversations with a caged bird and pretends to be an entirely different person on one occasion. She never fully feels grounded in herself, nor even her personal world around her. That is until she breaks down in the woods. Fanning really gets to bring out some interesting and very real stages of fear here that sets the tone moving forward. She also is constantly pushing against the status quo and rallying to move her fellow captors forward and out of danger. This role is also incredibly smart and deductive, a skill that really centres her as the hero of this story in the final act.

It is hard to connect with this movie most of the time, for two very strong reasons. The first being most of the characters are so devoid of likeable traits that it is actually hard to connect with this cast of characters. The protagonist mimics and parrots emotionally unsettling things and doesn't trust anyone. But then to make matters worse, she has one captor who is entirely defined by wondering when her husband will come running back, while another has random violent bursts of anger. The last occupant has some of the worst dialogue in the film, being given the entire exposition to deliver up. These are eccentric, slightly mad or oddball characters with few redeeming traits, resulting in a collection of people that you fail to become invested in. Even Mina's tragic backstory around feeling guilty about causing the car crash that killed her mother isn't connected in to the present day storyline very well. The second reason is just how much this film feels like it has to explain itself. This is an exposition heavy story, and everything that happens comes to the audience like an information package being rattled off. The movie often moves into implausible twists and turns, the glaringly obvious one being the bunker beneath the bunker and the absurdity that no one had found it until that point. The final act is another major crash and burn, with the final confrontation feeling quite underwhelming and the 'power of love' beating the odds without enough setup for that resolution. This film feels like it has a strong concept, but that the script needed to be tossed for a larger number of rewrites.

The visual effects are quite inconsistent in this, for example I really enjoyed the first scene at night in which we saw a Watcher. However, the flocks of birds, Darwin and the final monster confrontation at the end all looked hideous and didn't help some already poor narrative moments.

Georgina Campbell, who played Ciara, is all over the show in this role; I didn't enjoy this character being reduced to a blubbery mess only motivated by where her missing partner is at. Olwen Fouéré, who played Madeline, is a very out there character the whole way through; this film would have better served this character by giving her way less exposition to constantly keep delivering. Oliver Finnegan, who played Daniel, was a relatively annoying turbulent role; Finnegan is framed to be the loose cannon of the group, but he just winds up being one of the toughest characters to like.

I was excited to see if Ishana Shyamalan could break away from her Dad and do something fresh. Can confirm, she did not. I would give The Watchers a 4.5/10.