The Watchers

Having read some reviews, most of which very negative, decided to give Dakota another shot after the very emotionless performance she displayed on the latest Mr Ripley series. Again, the prodigal War of the Worlds actress offers a very emotionless, expressionless performance. It's like she doesn't want to be there, or is generally numbed. Not having a strong lead made this rely on the premise alone, and it did deliver.

Story is somewhat fresh, suspenseful, well paced action. Overall good entertainment for a monday night flick at home, but no more than that.

I'll give it a 6/10 for the effort put on everything but the acting.

I have often thought of this novel since consuming the audiobook in a couple days last year. I've recommended it to a lot of fellow horror readers, too. I personally feel that the film adaptation falls incredibly short of what it could have been. The novel is beautifully crafted with suspense and character development, whereas the movie offers 2D characters that are simply there just because. Their faces remain blank the majority of the movie and their line delivery is flat and almost always as if they're bored talking.

In true Shyamalan fashion, (yes, it's M. Night's daughter who directed it, but the apple doesn't fall far from the tree), the twist is a huge moment. While it does get revealed, it also changes a huge part of the original ending of the book, which makes the overall story even more of a 2D "horror twist." The book's ending gave me chills; the movie's ending gave me cliché horror.

I will say, I was eager to see who would play the character of Madeline, as she is such a force in the book as the most interesting character, as well as the one who has been trapped in the forest the longest, and Olwen Fouéré portrays her beautifully. The overall set design and atmosphere of the film is also done well, which helps but also makes the movie's poor script and characters feel all the more disappointing at times.

While I won't actively encourage not seeing this movie, I DO encourage you to check out the book, by A. M. Shine. I'm also happy that an author whose work I appreciate it getting the attention of Hollywood to have his work made into a different media form - let's hope if his other works become film or television adaptations, that they'll be given the adaptation they deserve.

While Ishana Night Shyamalan absolutely is her own filmmaker, and should her films judged on their own merits, The Watchers reminded me a lot of her fathers works in the ways that I usually find his films frustrating. I'm going to try my best not to keep comparing this to M. Night's movies but in particular The Watchers reminded me a lot of The Village and the issues I have with that film and I think I'd still feel that way with or without the familial connection.

Because like The Village, The Watchers has a very intriguing hook that presents a lot of interesting story possibilities very early on but it never capitalises on them in any satisfying way. The dialogue is really weak here and it's frequently delivered in extremely wooden ways which most rears its head in the exposition. Because Shyamalan clearly doesn't believe in the less-is-more approach in that she feels the need to over explain everything and as a result the mystery never really feels that intriguing. Most of the reveals come across as very flat that feel like they lack sufficient build up to be satisfying.

It's also very repetitive for most of the first 2 acts with it essentially following the same stricture of leaving this house and returning to it before night fall and it just came across as tiring rather tension-building. The reveals don't really feel earned and they're the one thing I wanted the film to explore more but the script really feels like it strikes the worst balance with what it chooses to focus on. The 3rd act was also a pretty big disappointment. The main action that's being built up for the entire film is achieved in a fairly standard way that doesn't feel fitting for what was being set up and it makes the mistake of feeling like it's getting ready to end only to go on for what felt like another 30 minutes.

Thankfully what saves the film from being a complete waste of time is the truly impressive filmmaking on display. It's gorgeously shot and visually ambitious in a way that feels like it could only come from a first-time director. I thought the score was phenomenal as was the cinematography in a way that didn't feel like it was drawing too much attention to itself. There are some very effective scares and genuine scenes of tension, unfortunately it was just never sustained enough to keep my interest. It's the script that ultimately sunk this movie for me but it's very clear that Ishana Night Shyamalan has real talent behind the camera.

The Watchers was frustrating waste of potential for me and something that never really felt like it capitalised on its intriguing set up. It's just reeks of a script that doesn't trust the intelligence of it's audience and I was just so consistently irritated at how the film kept going out of it's way to explain things in the most clunky and unimaginative ways possible. I can see what Shyamalan was going for, and if anything it makes more interested to read the novel, but her very clear talents just end up being wasted on a really poor script.

The film was at its best early in the middle, introducing the concept of the Watchers and the one-way glass room the protagonists have to stay in at night. The seemingly random plot elements strung together work because of how seemingly random yet intentional they seem.

The concept starts to fall apart once they get deeper and deeper into explaining the meaning behind all these seemingly random plot elements, tying it all together in a way which makes it all come across as rather bland, and likely to prompt a whole lot of questions instead of appreciation for the story and its mystery.

Without spoiling, I can just say that when there doubt, whether with regards to character motivations, the purpose of the Watchers, or how certain supernatural things work, the film was genuinely interesting and fun to watch. Once it started to explain everything, the character motivations, the purpose of the Watchers, and the whole backstory involved, it fell flat.

As an aside, the inclusion of the conure and it learning to talk felt very heavy-handed, like the most obvious of obvious metaphors short of outright explaining the idea upfront.

Mina (Dakota Fanning) is a twenty-something girl, then her car is broken down at a treeline, being stranded in a forest in the west of Ireland. When she finds shelter, she unwittingly becomes trapped with three strangers, all of whom are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures every night. Now Mina is trapped inside a decaying woodland shelter with three perfect strangers: Ciara (Georgina Campbell), Madeline (Olwen Fouéré) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan). Then some strange creatures emerge to observe their captive humans and terrible things happen to anyone who doesn't reach the bunker in time. Mina finds herself in a room with a wall of glass, and an electric light that activates at nightfall, when the Watchers come above ground. They are watching!. You can't see them, but they see everything !.

Dakota Fanning (Crazy in Albama) stars in this creepy "Folk Horror" directed by Ishana Shyamalan who shares his love of the terror genre like his father, the famous M. Night Shyamalan, director of ¨The Sixth Sense¨ and other successes in the field of horror and fantasy, such as ¨Signs¨ , ¨The village¨ , ¨Lady in water¨ , ¨Knock at the cabin¨, ¨Old¨, ¨The Incident¨, "Unbreakable" , ¨Multiple¨and "Glass" . It is important to name these films because some of them influenced on this ¨The Watchers¨which was also produced by M. Night Shyamalan.

This eerie and mysterious movie depicts the tale of an isolated place confronting the surprising truth that lies just outside its limits, they live under the control of a few 'Watchers' until a revelatory twist at the end. Ishana toys with terrifying ideas and in Irish fairy tales , but at times , she buries them under an illogical and rather unpredictable tale. Writer/director Shyamalan got a good feel for the time period with sinister images, threatening set pieces and tension enough . Stars Dakota Fanning who gives an acceptable acting as a young artist gets stranded in an extensive, immaculate forest in western Ireland, along with other decent players, such as: Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouéré, Oliver Finnegan, Alistair Brammer and special apperance from John Lynch.

It contains a suspenseful and intriguing musical score by composer Abel Korzeniowski. As well as colorful and evocative cinematography by cameraman Eli Arenson, shot on location in Ireland. The motion picture was professionally written and directed by Ishana Shyamalan , although not too original, because she copies ideas and the peculiar cinematographic style of her father M. Night. And it was directorial debut in a feature movie, she also made some episodes of the series ¨Servant¨. Rating: 6/10. The flick will please horror enthusiasts and fans of the director's father's films.