Directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, The Watchers follows a 28-year-old artist named Mina (Dakota Fanning) who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. Upon finding shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night known as the Watchers.
We currently live in a time where a few well-known film directors are beginning to pass on their talent to their kids, paving the way for a new generation of visionary directors. Ishana Night Shyamalan is the newest member to join that group, inheriting the talents of her father and bringing forth her directorial debut to the big screen in the form of a supernatural thriller/horror that very much looks and feels like her father’s work.
Many people know I have an immense love and respect for M. Night Shyamalan as a filmmaker so I was definitely interested to see what his daughter could do, especially having seen some of her great work in the series Servant. I honestly have to say that for her first theatrical film, I think she did a really good job! I may end up being in the minority but I think The Watchers is a brilliant supernatural thriller/horror/creature feature that had me completely on the edge of my seat and had me very much engaged from start to end. It has a few faults that prevent it from being a masterful debut but I still very much enjoyed everything this film had to offer, from its unique elements with the premise and story to the great performances and stellar technical work that make this film stand out amongst a majority of the horror films we have had so far this year.
So what is it that I really enjoyed about you may ask? Well for starters I think this film has some solid performances within its small cast. Every cast member greatly commits to their characters really well, offering a good amount of intrigue and emotional depth for us to get invested in them. A common problem in most horrors, especially in creature features, is that you don’t often care for the humans, but that wasn’t the case here, at least in my view. I cared about everyone that was involved and I wanted all of them to get out alive, even when the odds are hugely stacked against them.
I have not seen Dakota Fanning on the big screen since her small but intense role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood but it was so great to see her again here in a lead role that I personally found to be really compelling. From the start, you see that the character of Mina has a lot of emotional baggage and bottled-up guilt as a result of a traumatic past, which has made her somewhat of a social outcast who believes that she doesn’t belong anywhere. When placed in a supernatural scenario a lot of that trauma comes to the surface and she is forced to confront it not only for her own survival but the survival of others, ones she must learn to trust and work with in order to escape this nightmarish prison she becomes trapped in.
Fanning is able to bring her A-game to this film and make all the elements of this character feel believable with her performance, and she definitely is the main star.
Olwen Fouéré also stood out to me as the character Madeline, bringing a great amount of wisdom yet unsettling mystique with her performance, making you question her sanity and if she can truly be trusted amongst the group.
As for the titular Watchers, they were awesome and terrifying antagonists for this film, but what stood out to me was what they ended up being. Going in I was fully expecting these things to be aliens or vampires, but they ended up being something completely different that I have never seen in a big-screen horror film. I won’t reveal what their identity is but I can say these creatures do come from Irish folklore which I found to be unique and refreshing compared to most other creature features I’ve seen in recent years. They are brilliantly built up over the course of the film and even when you do learn their identity their terrifying true forms are never completely shown on screen, allowing audiences’ imaginations to run wild and add more terror to the mix. Additionally, they also prove to be very intelligent beings, which makes them even scarier.
This film’s narrative plays out as a very nail-biting supernatural thriller/horror that had a great amount of unique spins and twists that kept me on edge at all times. I even like how some narrative elements of this film reminded me of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which used to terrify the shit out of me growing up, and I was definitely feeling that same level of terror watching parts of this film. And even though this film isn’t R-rated there are some graphic moments, frightening sequences, and disturbing imagery that push the boundaries of the PG-13 rating and make this feel like a compelling horror compared to most PG-13 horrors I’ve seen these days.
That being said there are some faults with the narrative that prevent it from being potentially perfect. I feel the story isn’t as streamlined as it could have been, I feel it suffers from numerous pacing issues in certain places, and I did find there to be a bit too much exposition in certain scenes where it wasn’t needed. Too much exposition is a common problem that happens with most first-time filmmakers because they feel a need to explain certain things in order to get the plot going, not knowing that it is better to show and not tell everything. I don’t mind having exposition here and there if done well, and for the most part the exposition is fine in various scenes, but it definitely could have been slimmed down a bit and replaced with more visual storytelling. If Ishana can just work a little bit more on her writing I could see her being an incredible storyteller one day if given the opportunity.
One thing that Ishana did inherit from her father is his masterful technical work because my god is this film gorgeous and haunting from a technical perspective. Ireland is a naturally enchanting landscape that in some places looks like a fantasy realm, and this film beautifully captures that aspect while adding a suspenseful and eerie atmosphere on top of it, adding immense tension to the film as well as the feeling of complete isolation. This film will make you never want to step into a forest in Ireland for good reason as Ishana masterfully delivers a fantastic horror setting thanks to simple yet amazing practical sets and haunting cinematography that really stayed with me even after watching the film.
Some CGI is used for some things like the Watchers but I think a majority of it looked really good, though again the film doesn’t heavily show the design of the creatures and instead lets the audience’s imagination run wild. We also get a strong and creepy score from composer Abel Korzeniowski that certainly enhanced a lot of elements of this film as a whole.
This film may not be perfect but as a directorial debut for Ishana Night Shyamalan I thought it was great, and more importantly unique compared to most of the horror I’ve seen come out this year. After endless amounts of possession films and ghost flicks it’s nice to see a supernatural thriller/horror that isn’t focused on being either of those, and instead chooses to be creature feature with unique creatures and is clearly crafted by a talented individual that shows great potential as a filmmaker following in the footsteps of her father. I’m going to give The Watchers a B+ = 89.
You can find more of my writing on instagram, and check out my channel on YouTube!