“The Watchers” was written and directed by Ishana Shyamalan, in her directorial debut, and produced by her father, M. Night Shyamalan and is also based on the 2022 novel of the same name by A. M. Shine. The film stars Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouere & Oliver Finnegan. This film was in production during the 2023 SAG-AFTA strike and hit theaters on June 7, 2024.
In Galway, Ireland, an American immigrant, Mina (Fanning) is working in a pet shop. She’s given the task of transporting a rare bird to the zoo in Belfast. En route, her car breaks down in the forest, leaving her and the bird stranded. While wondering the forest, she meets Madeline (Fouere), an elderly woman also stranded in the forest. She leads Mina to “The Coop”, a glass bunker in the middle of the forest. In the Coop, she meets more stranded people. Ciara (Campbell) & Daniel (Finnegan). This bunker is the only protection they have against some mysterious creatures that supposedly only come out at night. These “watchers” are shape shifting beings that have been living among humans for thousands of years. Now, these 4 strangers must act together and figure out how to escape the forest without bothering these “watchers”.
This film had all the trimmings of a spooky creature feature mixed with the mystery / suspense of M. Night Shyamalan’s signature style. Despite having a pretty intriguing setup, the film flat about halfway through the film, primarily the final act of the film. The trailer has the whole setup but in the actual film, once it gets away from the interesting setup, everything kind of dissipates. The setup for this movie is the forest. It’s the great equalizer for a creature feature. Movies like “The Ritual”, “First Blood”, “Predator” & “The Revenant”, the forest plays its own role, almost as if it is a character in the story. Once the film leaves the forest and goes to the city or someone’s house, the movie loses a lot of steam. The mystery element is gone, the mystique is gone, now it becomes a run of the mill ghost story, which is very disappointing. Dakota Fanning has a great performance, but it isn’t enough to save the movie. It almost feels as if Ishana Shyamalan directed majority of the film and then once they get to the final act, M. Night took over and tried to insert his signature plot twist, but it unfortunately falls flat. Ironically, M. Night has done this before with films like “Old”, “The Village” & “Glass”, where your intrigued and invested in but then the twist happens, or we get to the fall act, and it doesn’t stick the landing.
This film has had its own controversy surround M. Night & his daughter, Ishana. Topics of nepotism & selfishness came up following the SAG-AFTA strike when it came out that M. Night self-financed the movie and then sold it to Warner Bros. The released date changed quite a few times before settling on June 7. It had special screenings in the U.S., the U.K. & Ireland.