The Watchers (2024)
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as the cliche goes, and it’s an understatement that expectations have been high around Ishana Night Shyamalan’s feature debut, The Watchers. Put it this way: The Watchers is not a perfect movie, but it’s very entertaining and not a bad way to start. We can also see dad M. Night’s trademark touch in evidence, at least in the background, but we’ll get to that.
Mina is an American living in Galway, Ireland, where she works at a pet store by day and goes bar-hopping at night, donning a wig and a fake life for the latter. Other than that, she chain-vapes and listens to a voice mail from her sister, Lucy, who’s concerned about her because she hasn’t seen her in fifteen years.
One day, Mina’s boss asks her to deliver a golden conure to the Belfast Zoo. It’s a day’s drive. She can see some of the Irish countryside. It’ll do her good. Mina’s pretty meh about the idea, but she takes the bird home and promises to start the next day. First of all, she’s going to hit another bar. “Try not to die,” she says to the conure, who says it right back to her.
The only reason I mention this is that the bird repeats this phrase all through the movie. A lot.
Mina tools along in her blue SUV until she drives through a forest, where her car suddenly stops. Long story short, she and the conure, who she names Darwin, find themselves trapped in a nightmare, where they and three other lost souls have to be inside what amounts to a habitat as the sun sets if they want to live. They’re being watched by unseen creatures, Mina is told. Let them see you. Don’t turn your back on the mirror. Follow their rules. And for heaven’s sake, stay away from the giant holes throughout the forest because that’s where the creatures go during the day.
This goes on for months, and despite having a few amusements to keep them busy, such as reality TV DVDs and a Victrola, sooner or later people go a bit stir-crazy. Mina never stops trying to find out who’s watching she and her fellow humans and why, because she’s determined to kick some creature tail and then get out of Dodge, in that order.
I don’t want to spoil anything, but suffice it to say, Mina gets her wish many times over. There’s a lot of exposition in this movie, and some of it repeats a few times apparently just in case we missed it the first time.
The Watchers starts out very strong, feeling a little reminiscent of Signs and The Village, in which the menace is unseen and the mind fills in the blanks. Shyamalan uses shock value very effectively as well, with no cheap jumpscares. There are also several nods to Hitchcock in that there are pairs, quite a bit of double-crossing, and in probably the most pointed homage of all: The heroine walks into trouble when she’s tasked with delivering a bird in a cage.
Yep, the younger Shyamalan is obviously very film savvy in more ways than one, but there’s definitely room for improvement, namely in the third act, when the movie loses a bit of momentum. To paraphrase Jeremy Jahns, “When you think the movie’s over, it isn’t.”
A big part of what makes The Watchers so effective is when the characters are trapped in a closed environment and everything is a big mystery. Once that barrier is removed, and no, I’m not going to spoil anything, the sense of dread doesn’t have nearly the same punch. I wish the exposition dumps could have happened while the characters were in captivity, as opposed to the various false endings we get.
On the other hand, the story doesn’t make much sense without these dumps, so I see their point. I just wish it could have been a little bit less heavy-handed.
Again, The Watchers is highly entertaining and not a bad place to start, especially for a first feature film. If Shyamalan’s future movies have tighter storylines than this one, she’s really got something.
The other thing that remains to be seen is what form her own identity as a filmmaker will take and how much of that identity will be in Dad’s shadow. It’s not a bad place to be, but it’s definitely a big shadow.
The Watchers is currently in theaters. Rated PG-13.
My grade: B+
Principal Cast: Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouere, Oliver Finnegan, Alistair Brammer, John Lynch, Siobhan Hewlett, Hannah Dargan, Emily Dargan, Joel Figueroa, Thlabile Michelle Hlongwane, Anthony Morris, Shane O’Regan, Jim Tighe, Morgan Bailey-Rocks, Zarima McDermott, Christian Bailey-Rocks
Written and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan and A.M. Shine (novel).