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Count musical artist and pop star Miley Cyrus as a major fan of Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy. So much so that she revealed in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar that she wanted to remake the movie as a musical and star as Nicolas Cage’s character.

The artist considers the film one of her all-time favorites, so much so that she shared that she also named her dog after the title character.

Nicolas Cage played Red Miller in Mandy. In the film, “Pacific Northwest. 1983 Ad. Outsiders Red Miller and Mandy Bloom lead a loving and peaceful existence. When their pine-scented haven is savagely destroyed by a cult led by the sadistic Jeremiah Sand, Red is catapulted into a phantasmagoric journey filled with bloody vengeance and laced with fire.”

The film was released in 2018 and also starred Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache, Ned Dennehy, and Olwen Fouéré with Richard Brake and Bill Duke.

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Hulu is one of the best places to find the best movies and TV shows you can watch on any streaming service. Every month, it adds hundreds of new titles to its content library, but with that, there are also some titles that have got to go. So, today, we are here to tell you about the best film you should watch before it leaves Hulu in November 2024.

American Murderer (November 4)

American Murderer is a true crime thriller drama film written and directed by Matthew Gentile. Based on the story of Jason Derek Brown, the 2022 film follows Jason Derek Brown, a charismatic con man who becomes a fugitive and wanted by the FBI after he commits his biggest crime yet. American Murderer stars Tom Pelphrey, Idina Menzel, Ryan Phillippe, Jacki Weaver, Shantel VanSanten, Paul Schneider, Kevin Corrigan, and Moisés Arias.

In Irish folklore and literature dating back to the 1500s, writers from the island nation have written about mythical beings known as “Fetches” that haunt people whose days are numbered. According to legend, Fetches take on the physical form of the humans they visit — and if your own creepy doppelganger visits you in the evening, it means your death is imminent. But if they visit you in the morning, you can prepare yourself for a long life ahead of you.

That mythology is set to come to life in “The Fetch,” a new horror movie debuting at the Austin Film Festival that promises to fuse Irish folklore with modern day scares. According to an official synopsis, the film follows a grieving father who finds himself haunted by the Fetch as he mourns the death of his only son.

“The Fetch” marks the feature directorial debut of J.C. Doler, who has previously released six short films.

Vertigo Releasing has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Polly Steele’s Four Letters Of Love starring Pierce Brosnan and Helena Bonham Carter.

Vertigo is scheduling a theatrical release for the film for spring 2025.

Four Letters Of Love is based on Niall Williams’ 1997 Irish novel of the same name, about a couple who seem made for each other, pulled together by ghosts, fate and the power of true love. Fionn O’Shea and Ann Skelly play the lovers, with Brosnan and Carter as their parents, and Gabriel Byrne and Olwen Fouere also among the cast.

Four Letters Of Love is a Genesius Pictures,...

Developing a Western in 2024 carries the baggage of a historical genre. So many directors have found ways to explore complex themes within the confines of the American West that coming across an original story in this space is rare. Yet this is precisely what drew Erin Moriarty to the directorial debut of Stuart Gatt, Catching Dust, which opens on August 23.

As the two couples work out their differences against the backdrop of the frontier, their lies and pain come to light. Gatt’s debut features Moriarity as Geena – a young woman looking to understand herself in the face of total isolation. Moriarity and Gatt spoke to FandomWire about the experience of making Catching Dust and how to capture the emotion of the genre.

Gatt wanted to explore isolation and the desert.

Westerns were not traditionally the kind of movies Gatt made. “I just made my last short about the Libyan refugee crisis.

Max announced this morning that The Watchers, Warner Bros/New Line’s supernatural thriller from first-time feature filmmaker Ishana Night Shyamalan, will begin streaming globally, exclusively on Max, on Friday, August 30.

The film hits streaming following a disappointing theatrical release kicking off in June, which resulted in less than $33 million in box office receipts.

An adaptation of the 2021 gothic horror novel by A.M. Shine, starring Dakota Fanning, who’s currently up for an Emmy for her work on Netflix’s miniseries Ripley, The Watchers tells the story of Mina (Fanning), a 28-year-old artist who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers that are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night. You can’t see them, but they see everything.

Shyamalan — daughter of M. Night — directed from her own script, with Georgina Campbell (Barbarian), Oliver Finnegan...

Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema’s The Watchers will make its global streaming debut on Friday, August 30, exclusively on Max.

The Watchers was rated PG-13 for violence, terror, and some thematic elements. The film has grossed $32.9 million at the global box office, with $19 million coming from domestic theaters and $13.9 million from international markets.

Based on A.M. Shine’s novel of the same name, the film follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland.

When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night. You can’t see them, but they see everything.

The supernatural horror movie was written for the screen and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan. The Watchers opened in North American theaters on June 7, 2024.

The film stars Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Oliver Finnegan, and Olwen Fouere.

M. Night Shyamalan,...

We have good news to share, horror fans. The Watchers has finally set its streaming debut release date. As expected, the supernatural horror film is coming to Max, and it'll be available to stream sooner than you think. How soon, you ask? In just a week!

Yes, you read that right. On Friday, Aug. 30, 2024, you'll be able to watch this 1 hour and 42-minute movie on the Max streaming service. In fact, it'll be streaming exclusively on this streamer. However, if you'd rather rent or purchase the film, you can still do so on digital platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, Vudu, or Apple TV.

The Watchers was written and helmed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, the daughter of well-known filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan. It's based on the 2021 book of the same name by A. M. Shine and follows a young woman who finds herself stranded in the woods after her car suddenly breaks down.

You can’t see them, but they see everything in director Ishana Night Shyamalan’s feature debut, The Watchers. If you missed it in theaters, it’s coming to Max later this month.

The Watchers will begin streaming exclusively on Max on Friday, August 30.

Until then, you can rent or buy The Watchers on all major VOD outlets. Ishana Night Shyamalan’s horror movie will also be released on 4K Uhd, Blu-ray, and DVD on August 27.

The film follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night.

The Watchers stars Dakota Fanning (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Georgina Campbell (Barbarian), Oliver Finnegan (“Creeped Out”), and Olwen Fouere (The Northman).

The mystery-horror film is produced by M. Night Shyamalan, Ashwin Rajan and Nimitt Mankad.

Max announced on Friday that The Watchers, the Ishana Night Shyamalan film starring Dakota Fanning, will be landing on the streamer later this month. Below, we’re outlining everything you need to know for watching the horror movie online.

Where to Watch The Watchers Online

The Watchers will land on Max on Friday, Aug. 30, so you’ll need to subscribe to the platform to stream the movie from home. Below, we’re outlining everything you need to know about how to sign up for Max to watch The Watchers online, plus outlining more details about the film.

More from TVLineMy...

Director Fede Alvarez’s contribution to the Alien franchise, Alien: Romulus (you can read our review Here), is currently in theatres – and this isn’t the first time he has added to a popular genre franchise. Not only did he make his feature directorial debut with the 2013 version of Evil Dead, but two years ago he teamed with Legendary Pictures and the Netflix streaming service to bring us a Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, which he produced and crafted the story for alongside his frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues. Now Legendary is working with the Six Flags theme park company to bring an experience inspired by that Texas Chainsaw Massacre film to Six Flags Great Adventure and Six Flags Over Texas – and we’ve gotten our hands on a batch of images that offer a preview of the experience! You can check them out at the bottom of this article. The experience...

Where are all my horror fans? Netflix recently added 10 horror films to its platform on the first of August. While I recommend checking out each new release, the one that should be at the top of your watchlist is the 2024 supernatural horror film Tarot. This movie is criminally underrated, in my opinion, when it really deserves all the love and attention.

Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg (The Expendables 4) wrote and directed Tarot, making it their feature film directorial debuts. Like most movies nowadays, Tarot is based on another piece of work. It's based on Nicholas Adams' 1992 novel Horrorscope. Although panned by critics, the horror flick still managed to be a box-office success, grossing $49 million worldwide against a budget of $8 million.

Here's how I see it. It's okay to read critic reviews but don't let what someone else has said and their opinions deter you from watching a movie. Who knows,...

We've officially started a new month, and Netflix has already released many horror movies on its platform. In fact, several more horror films are set to be released on the streamer throughout the rest of August. Below, we shared some of the best horror flicks you can watch on Netflix this month.

Tarot (2024)

This supernatural horror film follows a group of college friends who, after playing with a cursed deck of tarot cards, begin to meet their demises in ways related to their fortunes told in the cards. Harriet Slater, Adain Bradley, Avantika Vandanapu, Wolfgang Novogratz, Humberly González, Larsen Thompson, Jacob Batalon, and Olwen Fouéré make up the cast. You can stream Tarot on Netflix right now.

Cult of Chucky (2017)

Continuing the story of the killer doll, Cult of Chucky follows Chucky as he invades a mental institution to terrorize his human victim from the previous film, Nica Pierce. Meanwhile,...

Get ready to confront your deepest fears as Sony Pictures Home Entertainment announces the digital release of Tarot. This supernatural horror film, directed by Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg, is set to send shivers down your spine starting 29th July 2024. Tarot brings a new dimension of terror by intertwining modern life with ancient curses, ensuring a heart-pounding experience for viewers.

In Tarot, a group of friends find themselves trapped in a nightmarish reality after their innocent curiosity leads them to violate a sacred rule of Tarot readings – never use someone else’s deck. This seemingly harmless act unleashes an unspeakable evil trapped within the cursed cards, forcing the friends to confront the grim fates foretold by their readings.

The film boasts a stellar cast including Harriet Slater, Adain Bradley, Avantika, Wolfgang Novogratz, Humberly González, Larsen Thompson, and Jacob Batalon. Their performances bring depth and intensity to the chilling story, making...

Paul Duane crafts a melancholy yet unforgettable film with All You Need is Death. A talented documentary maker, Duane turns to folk horror with this tale with Irish music and mystery at its core. We meet Anna and Aleks, a young couple exploring rare folk songs in Ireland.

Hoping to make a discovery, they hear rumors of an ancient ballad known only to Rita Concannon, the sole inheritor of a song passed down through generations of women in her family. What begins as an intriguing search soon reveals dark forces as this music stirs memories better left buried.

Duane takes us deep into Irish folklore and the power of tradition to both heal and haunt. Central is the concept of ancestral memory preserved not in books but in verse handed down through time. When the songs meant only for certain ears are heard by others, what wakes up the soul?...

The movie world has a new Shyamalan on the block – Ishana Shyamalan, daughter of renowned filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan. Her latest imaginative horror film, “The Watchers”, serves up a display of compelling cinematography and a creative screenplay.

An extension of her father’s successful legacy in the world of mystery and fantasy, Ishana offers a captivating performance in this film, starring Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Oliver Finnegan, and Olwen Fouere.

Plot Overview: “The Watchers”

In an enigmatic Irish forest, people mysteriously vanish. A girl finds herself lost in it and thereby discovers three mysterious inhabitants in a refuge. Each night, enigmatic creatures visit them.

The Watchers About the Movie

Ishana Shyamalan’s “The Watchers” is a stylish, imaginative film that takes risks in its storyline. Much like her well-known father, Ishana manages to present a wonderfully different horror-fantasy movie, fascinating when it needs to be, and deceptively predictable when, in reality,...

Killer Collectibles highlights five of the most exciting new horror products announced each and every week, from toys and apparel to artwork, records, and much more.

Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week!

The Gingerdead Man Blu-ray from Full Moon

The Gingerdead Man slices into Blu-ray on August 13 via Full Moon Features. The 2005 slasher has been newly remastered in high definition from the original elements. Pre-orders are live for only $17.51.

B-movie maven Charles Band directs from a script by Domonic Muir. Gary Busey stars as the titular killer cookie alongside Robin Sydney, Jonathan Chase, Alexia Aleman, Margaret Blye, James Snyder, and Larry Cedar.

Special features include: a behind the scenes featurette; blooper reel; and trailers.

Glow-in-the-Dark Ghost Face from Living Dead Dolls

Entertainment Earth exclusively carries a limited edition version of Living Dead Dolls’ Ghost Face with a bloody, glow-in-the-dark mask.

The 10″ doll has 5 points of articulation and...

New to theaters, ‘The Watchers’, was adapted from a novel by A.M. Shine, and is the film debut of writer and director Ishana Night Shyamalan. The film stars actors: Dakota Fanning (Mina), Georgina Campbell (Ciara), Olwen Fouéré (Madeline), and Oliver Finnegan (Daniel). ‘The Watchers’ delivers an eerie and suspenseful atmosphere with solid performances, though it leans more on suspense than outright horror. The main antagonist within the film involves the peculiar beings that live in the forest, in which four scared strangers have found themselves trapped. The deadly creatures that are natural inhabitants of the forest only come out once the sun sets, but the characters find refuge in a peculiar, multi-faceted cabin “The Coop” with a two-way mirror where the creatures gather at night to observe them. Mina, lost in the woods on her way to work, becomes the latest addition to the captured crew and learns that they...

M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter Ishana Night Shyamalan made her feature directorial debut with a thriller called The Watchers, which received a June 7th theatrical release, courtesy of Warner Bros. / New Line Cinema. (You can read our review Here and watch our interviews with the director and cast members Here.) The movie did not enjoy the sort of box office success many of the elder Shyamalan’s films have, drawing in just over $25 million worldwide so far. But maybe it will reach a wider audience with its digital release, which is just one week away. Media Play News reports that on June 28th, three weeks after it reached theatres, The Watchers will be available to watch in the comfort of your own home. The 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD release will follow on August 27th.

Ishana Night Shyamalan wrote the screenplay for The Watchers, based on a novel by...

You can’t see them, but they see everything in director Ishana Night Shyamalan’s feature debut, The Watchers. And if you missed The Watchers in theaters, you can watch at home as soon as next week.

The Watchers opened in theaters on June 7 and will be available on premium video on demand on Friday, June 28, 2024.

Warner Bros. Discovery also revealed in the press release for the film’s at home streaming release that The Watchers will be released on 4K Uhd, Blu-ray, and DVD on August 27.

The film follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night.

The Watchers stars Dakota Fanning (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Georgina Campbell (Barbarian), Oliver Finnegan (“Creeped Out”), and Olwen Fouere (The Northman).

The...

Who watches "The Watchers"? Unfortunately, the answer to that is: Not nearly as many moviegoers as writer/director Ishana Night Shyamalan probably would've liked for her debut feature. As /Film's Ryan Scott laid out in his box office reporting, the younger Shyamalan's folk horror film couldn't quite duplicate the consistent theatrical success of her famous father, continuing 2024's downward trend of buzzy-sounding titles struggling to live up to expectations among general audiences and genre fans. Granted, the mixed reviews likely didn't help its cause, including one by yours truly (which you can read here) that nonetheless pointed out the immense amount of promise and potential on display for Shyamalan's future efforts. But for those who were scared off by the critical reception or the spooky premise the first time around, curious viewers will soon get their chance to catch the movie from home in very little time at all.

Those...

Stars: Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouéré, Siobhan Hewlett, Alistair Brammer | Written and Directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan

28-year-old Mina (Dakota Fanning) gets stranded in a never-ending, untouched forest in western Ireland. Seeking refuge, she soon becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are stalked by mysterious creatures every night. Watched through a window where the creatures can see in but the humans can’t see out, Mina tries to get to the bottom of what’s going on — until it goes wrong.

When nepotism is good, we absolutely love it — look at Jane Fonda, Billie Lourd, and Jamie Lee Curtis. Therefore, it stands to reason that when an acclaimed director renowned for his unique take on thrilling storylines has a kid who wants to do the same thing, audiences should lap them up. However, Ishana Night Shyamalan’s directorial debut The Watched is far from stepping out of her father’s shadow,...

Another weekend in the books, another disappointing opening for a much-anticipated horror movie. Warner Bros. released Ishana Night Shyamalan's "The Watchers" in theaters this past weekend, and given that the daughter of "The Sixth Sense" director M. Night Shyamalan was getting into the family business, there was excitement around this one. Unfortunately, the end result left much to be desired in the early going, both critically and commercially.

"The Watchers" opened to an estimated $7 million in its debut domestically. It opened against "Bad Boys: Ride or Die," which easily won the weekend with an impressive $56.5 million opening. Unfortunately, even though this seemed like an example of solid counterprogramming, Shyamalan's mysterious horror flick landed at number four on the charts, also placing behind "The Garfield Movie" ($10 million) and "If" ($8 million). Those movies were in their third and fourth weekends, respectively. Needless to say, this isn't what WB had in mind.

Rank Film (distributor) Three-day gross (June 6-8) Total gross to date Week 1. Bad Boys: Ride Or Die (Sony) £2.9m £3.9m 1 2. If (Paramount) £866,000 £10.8m 4 3. The Garfield Movie (Sony) £729,503 £7.4m 3 4. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (Disney) £620,929 £14.3m 5 5. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros) £436,839 £5.6m 3

Bad Boys: Ride Or Die charged to the top of the UK and Ireland box office this weekend with a £2.9m debut for Sony.

The fourth instalment in the buddy cop franchise starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence opened in 643 sites, giving it a £4,391 location average. Including previews, the action comedy made £3.9m.

Ride Or Die...

[This story contains spoilers for The Watchers.]

As an artist, it’s no easy task to define oneself, to showcase a perspective and style that differentiates you from others. And it’s always that “other” that looms large, impacting your and everyone else’s perceptions of you. This is certainly the case for Mina (Dakota Fanning), a young, directionless artist whose car breaks down in the ancient woods of Ireland where she finds herself lost, in more ways than one, in The Watchers, based on the novel by A.M. Shine.

The film marks the feature debut of 24-year-old Ishana Night Shyamalan, daughter of cinematic storyteller, M. Night Shyamalan. The younger Shyamalan cut her teeth as a producer and director on her father’s the Apple+ series Servant, and as second-unit director on M. Night’s beach horror feature, Old (2021). With The Watchers, Ishana Shyamalan sets out to define herself as her own artist, while her father’s shadow,...

“Tarot” is a horror movie written and directed by Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg based on the novel by Nicholas Adams. It stars Alana Boden, Jacob Batalon, Humberly González and Olwen Fouere.

In the world of cinema, there is an endless array of horror films that aim to scare us, offering a thrilling and entertaining cinematic experience. Some are original, fresh and unique, pushing the boundaries and redefining the genre. Then there are films like “Tarot”, which rely heavily on tried and tested clichés.

A Pocketful of Clichés All in One Picture

“Tarot” is a film that indulges in every typical scene that has scared us not only once, but repeatedly over time. From the mysteriously appearing girl at the curve to the demonic clown, witches and terrifying children’s fares, it draws inspiration from various sources ranging from occult themes to silent era cinema.

The references to Tarot, future predicting cards,...

The enduring irony of M. Night Shyamalan’s cinema is that no matter how much he believes in the power and magic of storytelling, he nearly always struggles to spin a good yarn. The tin-eared dialogue, the crude sentimentality, and the compulsive overreliance on tension and startling-for-their-own-sake (and often tension-deflating) left turns are all part of what we’ve come to understand as distinctly Shyamalan-esque. And now, they’re present and accounted for in The Watchers, the debut feature of his daughter Ishana Night Shyamalan.

Dakota Fanning stars as Mina, an American living in Galway, Ireland, who spends her time, no doubt as a consequence of her traumatic past, donning wigs and lying to men in bars between shifts at the local pet shop. When she’s tasked with delivering a gorgeous golden conure parrot to a zoo in Belfast, Mina takes the opportunity for some time away but, when her car breaks down,...

Here’s a look at this week’s biggest premieres, parties and openings in Los Angeles and New York, including events for House of the Dragon, Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Clipped and The Watchers.

The Watchers premiere

Writer/director Ishana Night Shyamalan premiered her directorial debut in NYC on Sunday, alongside father M. Night Shyamalan and stars Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouéré and Oliver Finnegan.

M. Night Shyamalan, Alistair Brammer, Olwen Fouéré, Dakota Fanning, Ishana Night Shyamalan, Georgina Campbell and Oliver Finnegan

House of the Dragon premiere

Showrunner Ryan Condal and stars Emma D’Arcy, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Fabien Frankel, Tom Glynn-Carney and Ewan Mitchell debuted season 2 of the Game of Thrones prequel in NYC on Monday.

Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy and showrunner Ryan Condal Fabien Frankel

Clipped premiere

FX celebrated the premiere of Clipped in downtown Los Angeles on Monday,...

Irish folklore and supernatural mystery collide in Ishana Shyamalan’s debut feature The Watchers, adapted for the screen by Shyamalan from A.M. Shine’s novel of the same name, The Watchers follows a group of strangers trapped in a remote Irish forest. Each night they are visited by unseen creatures who threaten to kill them all if they dare leave. It’s a strong, although familiar, premise that leaves room for endless speculation. What is watching them at night? And worse, what do they want?

In this weird world of hidden monsters and impossible situations, a group of travelers held captive rescue Mina at nightfall after her car breaks down while travelling through the countryside. Inside a building that looks like a studio apartment turned into a zoo attraction, Madeline, the group’s de facto leader, explains that she has unknowingly wandered into a trap and that there are rules...

Warning: In case the headline didn't give it away, this article contains major spoilers for "The Watchers."

Stop me if you've heard this one before: There's a new horror movie directed by a filmmaker with the last name Shyamalan that's about creepy (and possibly supernatural) threats in the middle of a secluded forest ... and, yes, there's a big plot twist hiding in plain sight. Reactions thus far have been rather divisive, as you can see from my rather mixed review for /Film, and the sense of atmosphere and tone certainly feel consistent with someone who received their film-school crash course while serving as a second-unit director on M. Night Shyamalan's 2021 film "Old" and a director on several episodes of his streaming series "Servant," but that's pretty much where the similarities between father and daughter end.

Ishana Night Shyamalan's debut feature "The Watchers" is very much abiding by its own rules entirely.

Based on a novel by Irish author A.M. Shine, writer-director Ishana Night Shyamalan’s The Watched — known as The Watchers in some territories — feels like a companion piece to her father M Night Shyamalan's Knock At The Cabin. Again, we’re deep in literal and metaphorical woods and a random set of strangers gather for momentous, ominous purpose. In Knock, things got less interesting the more was revealed. This goes the other way — to the extent that the premise sold in the trailer is rather underdone (little is made of the situation where abductees are on display all the time). But when the claustrophobia lets up, the story takes off in fresh, unsettling directions. It feels like a pilot for a series, setting out more mythology than it can explore.

Things are off-kilter even in the normal life of our hero Mina (Dakota Fanning): she’s working without...

The “Summer of Shyamalan” kicks off with Ishana Night Shyamalan's The Watchers, a misguided mixture of compelling Celtic folk horror and choppy storytelling. In a rare spot of Dewey Cox logic, it's a movie that's both too long and too short. Shyamalan's feature debut boasts a keen directorial eye—shot composition is that of a resourceful veteran—but it's a film at odds. Irish influences grate against predictable horror tropes, diminishing the allure of historical mythology about faes, changelings, and other forest creatures that may or may not be gathering outside a double-sided window that provides no answers (at first).

Dakota Fanning stars as Mina, an American woman hiding from the world amidst Galway's anonymity. She's tasked with transporting a parrot from the pet shop where she's employed to a client, but gets lost in a dense western Ireland forest along the way. After some wandering, the afternoon turns to nightfall,...

Sony is rolling out Bad Boys: Ride Or Die at 643 locations to make it the widest release in the UK and Ireland this weekend.

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence reprise their roles as two renegade cops standing in the way of a Miami drugs cartel, with Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah directing.

It is the fourth installment in the Bad Boys franchise following the most recent, Bad Boys For Life, opening to £3.8m in January 2020, surpassing the £866,215 opening of 1995’s Bad Boys and the £3.2m of 2003’s Bad Boys II.

The Watched, known outside of UK-Ireland as The Watchers,...

Folk horror aims for the darkest parts of our imaginations. The creatures that dwell out of sight can frighten and speak to larger cultural concerns. Ishana Shyamalan tackles the genre in her debut feature, The Watchers. With some interesting mythical characters, The Watchers touches on some interesting topics. However, a frustrating screenplay and questionable structure sink the film, especially in its final act.

SUGGESTEDHorror Film, Barbarian, Will Receive a Video Game Adaptation From Diversion3 Entertainment The Watchers Plot

Mina (Dakota Fanning) continues to struggle with the death of her mother. More than fifteen years after a car accident, she remains estranged from her sister. When her boss at the pet store asks her to deliver a bird to the zoo, Mina takes the gig to avoid facing her grief. However, after her car breaks down in the woods, she becomes trapped in a bunker with three strangers. Outside the shelter,...

Plot: A young artist gets stranded in an extensive, immaculate forest in western Ireland, where, after finding shelter, she becomes trapped alongside three strangers, stalked by mysterious creatures each night.

Review: There’s no denying that there’s a tremendous amount of pressure on writer/director Ishana Shyamalan with her debut feature. Her father’s reputation will always follow her but let’s not pretend like that’s entirely a bad thing. Unlike many first-time directors, she was able to hone her craft as a 2nd Unit Director on many M Night productions. This allows her to skip some of the steps common for most young filmmakers, and avoid easy trappings. If there’s one thing that’s clear after experiencing The Watchers: we most definitely have two Shyamalans out in the world, for better or worse.

And it goes without saying that I’ll be avoiding spoilers as...

So, is it The Watchers or is it The Watched? In North America it’s the former, in the UK and Ireland it’s the latter, and it’s a testament to the all-over-the-shop plotting of Ishana Night Shyamalan’s feature debut that it doesn’t really make much difference whichever way you look at it. Working from a folk-horror novel by A.M. Shine, Shyamalan takes a simple single-location genre premise — literally, it’s a cabin-in-the-woods story — and somehow creates a thriller that’s both unnecessarily complex and almost entirely uninteresting.

Alarm bells ring when the curtain rises, and a voiceover tells us of the forest that’s not on any map, that draws in lost souls “like a moth to a flame” and is so deadly that “those that wander in never come back out”. To illustrate this, we see a stranded backpacker — whose identity we learn later — running...

Hollywood and nepotism are two things that go hand in hand it seems. While the concept of nepotism is not new, recently it has gained more traction as more and more people are pointing out how every other actor that gets inducted into the Hollywood regime turns out to be a son, a daughter, a niece or nephew of another Hollywood personality.

M. Night Shyamalan | Credits: Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore

M. Night Shyamalan is a name in the directorial world that fans clamor to, especially when it comes to the horror and thriller genre. His movies like The Sixth Sense, Split, Glass, Unbreakable, and so many more have made him a name in the industry. Actors and audiences alike are amazed by his incredible filmmaking, who is known to be one of the very best working in the directorial field in Hollywood. And now, his daughter Ishana Night Shyamalan seems...

The WatchersImage: Warner Bros.

When a filmmaker is just starting out, it’s good to get a few out for practice. If you’re a nobody, these exercises take place in obscurity. But if you’re the daughter of the guy who made The Sixth Sense, your wobbly baby steps...

The famed director acts as producer for his offspring’s directorial debut but her tale of mythical creatures in the Irish woods goes from intriguing to absurd

It’s a big year for the Shyamalan clan, bullishly expanding into the spotlight with such runaway speed that one assumes an accompanying reality show might also be in the offing. This summer, singer Saleka Shyamalan will star as a pop star in her father M Night’s Josh Hartnett-led thriller Trap, having previously contributed songs for his Apple show Servant and 2021 thriller Old. Before that, the Oscar-nominated film-maker is also ushering his daughter Ishana’s directorial debut into cinemas, Irish fantasy horror The Watchers (weirdly retitled The Watched for the UK and Ireland), his middle child having already worked with him on both the big and small screen. It’s hard to separate her film entirely from such lineage; in fact...

Deep in the woods of West Ireland — in “a forest that does not appear on any map” — there is a house. A steel door, blessed with numerous locks and bolts to keep its occupants safe, is the most prominent feature up front. The back of the house appears, at first, to be a wall-length mirror; it’s actually a one-way picture window. No one on the inside can see what’s happening outside. But anyone or any thing that might be lurking outside? They have a perfect, proscenium-style view into whatever is happening inside.

Legendary filmmaker and master of the plot twist, M. Night Shyamalan, acts as producer for this serviceable horror offering from his daughter Ishana Night Shyamalan. Titled The Watched in the UK and Ireland – it is known by The Watchers elsewhere – the film is an adaptation of the gothic novel by the same name by Irish writer A. M. Shine.

The film stars Dakota Fanning, Olwen Fouéré, Georgina Campbell (Barbarian) and Oliver Finnegan (Outlander).

Mina (Fanning), a troubled young artist working in a pet shop in the Republic of Ireland is tasked with delivering a parrot bought by a customer on the other side of the country. A couple of hours into her journey, Mina gets stranded in an mysterious, untouched forest when her car breaks down.

Lost in the forest with the sun about to set, Mina becomes the target of mysterious creatures. When she comes across a shelter in the forest,...

“The Watchers” is the first film directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, the 24-year-old daughter of M. Night Shyamalan. Its title refers to a race of spindly ash-gray monsters who haunt an Irish woods, gathering at night around a concrete fortress where the film’s four characters have holed up in a state of semi-permanent refuge. The building has just one room, an entire wall of which is a two-way mirror through which the Watchers peer, all because..they like to watch.

At the same time, the title could almost be referring to anyone who will watch this movie with eyes on the inevitable question of how much of a chip off the old Shyamalan block it is. Is “The Watchers” a glossy/clever mystery horror thriller? Yes. Did Ishana Night Shyamalan, whose father is one of the producers, write the movie as well as direct it? Yes (though she adapted...

There’s a simplicity to writer/director Ishana Night Shyamalan’s feature debut, The Watchers, an adaptation of the novel by A.M. Shine. The horror fairy tale traps four strangers in a mysterious forest untethered from reality, where they must observe a handful of straightforward rules to appease the inhuman things that come to observe them every night. It’s a setup that presents fertile ground to mine chills from Irish folklore and psychological distress, but Shyamalan gets too caught up in mythological exposition to instill any tension or scares.

The Watchers follows Mina (Dakota Fanning), an aloof loner who fled from her past traumas and mistakes to Ireland, where she doodles away at her quiet job at a pet store. Mina’s past remains a closely guarded secret, but it’s clear the distance has done nothing to close those wounds. Naturally, she finds herself confronting her past in...

Some of the most boldly assured first features by women in the past 20 years have been horror. Think Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, Julia Ducournau’s Raw or Rose Glass’ Saint Maud. On the strength of The Watchers, Ishana Night Shyamalan, the 23-year-old daughter of You Know Who, fails to make that list, despite having what appear to be considerable resources thrown at her. While Dakota Fanning does yeoman’s work in the central role, this is basically the usual Irish hooey about faeries and changelings and other pesky entities dressed up in ponderous Jungian doubles theory.

Produced by dad M. Night Shyamalan and adapted from the novel by West Irish author A.M. Shine (apparently a real name), the movie charges right into its souped-up atmospherics, accompanied by Abel Korzeniowski’s hyperventilating score.

Eli Arenson’s camera tracks a panicked man (Alistair Brammer), hurtling through a dense forest in the...

The notion of seeing the "Shyamalan" name attached to any given title has always been as fascinating a journey as the films themselves. Anyone who was (unfairly) crowned "The Next Spielberg" at such an early juncture was probably doomed to have that follow them for the rest of their career, but M. Night Shyamalan managed to rewrite his own ending multiple times over, improbably enough: first weathering his status as an up-and-coming visionary, then becoming something of a pariah through the inevitable dry spell that seemed to cement his reputation, and finally culminating with several stripped-down, yet quintessentially Shyamalan hits in a row. Perhaps it's only fitting, then, that the next phase in this twisting odyssey has now arrived — this time, in the form of the next generation of Shyamalan storytellers.

Ishana Night Shyamalan's feature debut "The Watchers" will inevitably draw comparisons to her father's body of work, though...

A well-paced supernatural horror movie that’s built atop a high-concept premise, sustained by impressively elegant direction, hobbled by some of the clunkiest dialogue you’ve ever heard (to say nothing of the non-characters forced to speak it), and then undone by a twist ending so clearly telegraphed from the start that it might as well have been sent to the third act by Western Union, “The Watchers” offers ample evidence to suggest that first-time feature director Ishana Night Shyamalan — of the M. Night Shyamalans — probably wasn’t the most rebellious of children.

If there’s much about her debut that left me wishing the apple had fallen a little further from the tree, there’s also no denying that the “Unbreakable” filmmaker’s daughter has the skill to follow in her father’s footsteps, which she does here even when the material is begging her to blaze her own trail.

“Try not to die!”

When Dakota Fanning’s Mina prepares for a night out with a bird on loan from the pet shop, she gives him that warning in jest before bolting out the door. Little does she know, the sunny yellow bird will soon parrot that phrase back to her as she faces unimaginable horrors deep in the woods of Ireland.

Thankfully, the real bird had a more calming presence on set. “Her real name was Sunshine. She was great! Easygoing. No problems. Got a lot of attention. Everyone really loved her and took really good care of her. She was munching on blueberries most of the time in her little cage,” Fanning says of her feathered co-star.

“The Watchers,” in theaters Friday from Warner Bros., follows Mina as she finds herself trapped in the forest with three strangers, forced to abide by the rules of mysterious malevolent creatures each night.

In the new thriller The Watchers, a group of strangers are brought together by unexpected circumstances. Written and directed by Ishana Shyamalan, the creepy story features Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouere, and Oliver Finnegan. And frankly, it’s not hard to see a little inspiration from when it comes to the strange and mysterious tale it tells. What are “The Watchers?” Well, I won’t spoil it here, but like the tagline claims, they see everything. I recently sat down for a few terrific interviews with Ms. Dakota Fanning, as well as Georgina Campbell and the storyteller, Ishana Shyamalan. It was an absolute pleasure chatting with all three. Having spoken to both Fanning and Campbell previously, it was nice to discuss their latest. The two actors opened up about being pulled into this world and working with a director telling a different kind of story. Both of these talents...

Ishana Shyamalan has long been transfixed by the spell of folklore and the stories we leave only half-remembered. This was true of her work as a director on Servant, the cryptic Apple TV+ series executive produced by her father M. Night Shyamalan, and it’s true of her new horror film The Watchers, a movie set in the most menacing “enchanted forest” you’ll ever see. But for Ishana, it goes back even further than that.

“I think this particular mythology is something I connected very strongly to as a child,” Shyamalan says when we sit down with her ahead of The Watchers’ release this weekend, “in particular this darker take on it.” It is why she directly sought out material like A.M. Shine’s novel of the same name as the kind of source material she wanted for her directorial debut. It is why she found herself in search of Ireland.

Despite her age, Dakota Fanning may very well be one of the most experienced actors on any given set. Her big-screen career began at the mere age of seven when she shared scenes with Hollywood heavyweights like Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer in I Am Sam.

Justin Chatwin, Dakota Fanning and Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds (2005)

As Fanning takes on her latest role in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Watchers, it’s worth considering how her earlier experience in the horror genre, namely Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, may have influenced her acting approach. This latest foray into the supernatural with The Watchers offers an opportunity to explore the impact of those early experiences on Fanning’s acting repertoire.

How Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds Impacted Dakota Fanning’s Career

Steven Spielberg‘s War of the Worlds holds a special place in Dakota Fanning‘s heart.