Film. It brings us all together as a community; we get to go to the cinema and have these experiences together, discuss the film, and have opposing thoughts on it. The horror genre specifically might be one of the best genres to watch in the cinema, with an audience screaming and jumping together. It’s an exhilarating feeling that even someone who gets scared easily, like myself, likes to feel sometimes.
We are currently in the age of directorial debuts, and while we of course get that every year, we are getting some very noticeable ones this year that are worth talking about. Dev Patel with Monkey Man or Sean Charmatz with Orion and the Dark are really well thought out and wonderful films from first-time directors. Ishana Night Shyamalan is the newest director coming to theatres this year with her adaptation of The Watchers by A. M. Shine. As you can tell from her name, she’s the daughter of widely known director M. Night Shyamalan, but the question is, does she follow in her dad’s footsteps of having a great initial concept that falls apart by the third act, or has she broken the Night Shyamalan curse?
The Watchers follows Mina (Dakota Fanning), a 28-year-old artist, who finds herself stranded in an untouched forest in western Ireland. Unfortunately, she becomes trapped with three other strangers, Ciara (Georgina Campbell), Madeline (Olwen Fouéré), and Daniel (Mike Finnegan), in a room where they are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night.
I’m not familiar with the source material, so I’m not able to talk about how well this does compared to that, but Ishana takes what is an interesting concept and plays around with the idea quite well for the first two acts of the film. After agreeing to help her colleague out by delivering a parrot to a residency in Western Ireland, she finds herself without any connection to the outside world as her car suddenly stops operating and her phone gives out on her, hinting at the mystical forces behind the forest and the creatures. The opening scene provides us with a taste of the creatures at play in this film, and it is a terrifying scene with well-placed jump scares, but unfortunately, the rest of the movie doesn’t hold the same praise.
What I think works best for horror films, and what keeps them scary, is when they focus on the fear of the unknown. The Watchers seemingly uses that to its advantage, and the cinematography from Eli Arenson really helps capture this mood for the film. Not knowing what was stalking them during the night and watching them put literal fear into my body, but for an odd reason, Ishana Night Shyamalan makes the decision to reveal the creature design, and while it’s an amazing design for the creature at hand, it immediately stops becoming scary and starts becoming hard to take this film seriously. It’s unfortunate when the idea of the creatures is scarier than the actual creatures, and I only wish this was a decision kept for the third act of the movie; the reveal of what they look like would’ve worked better, and the scenes that played out would’ve felt tense. Instead, it just felt like they were rushing to get to its conclusion while also throwing a heap load of exposition to explain not only the plot twist but essentially everything about the creatures, once again, something that would’ve just worked better if it was spread out throughout the film with our trapped characters learning more about them, there are two scenes where this could’ve happened, but it’s left for literally one of the final scenes in the film.
Like with any Night Shyamalan film, there’s a twist. This seems to run in the family and is to be expected now, but while it may not be Ishana’s fault and this could easily be how it plays in the novel, I believe they were better off reworking the twist completely. Not only can you predict the twist from just the first act, but it also isn’t a good one, especially because of its resolution; it’s not a satisfying one at all, and honestly, it’s quite a weird ending that still has me thinking while writing this review. The writing for the film itself isn’t anything masterful or ground-breaking, but the actors do take it to a whole new level with their performances. Dakota Fanning brings the most to the film as we discover more about her character, and all it makes me want is more Dakota Fanning in my movies. Georgina Campbell returns in yet another horror and once again makes it worth watching for just her performance alone.
The Watchers is a mystical and fantastical tale about four people being stalked and watched by the unknown, but Ishana never fully takes the fear of the unknown or the mystical side of the film to its full advantage with her writing. The pacing isn’t the best, with some scenes feeling extra long due to exposition that could’ve easily been spread out during the film, allowing the mystery of who and what the creatures were to be worth the reveal in the end. It’s not a bad film by any means; it’s enjoyable and has a few scares, but it just doesn’t last throughout the film due to its inconsistency. For a directional debut, even if she is currently following in the footsteps of her father, Ishana Night Shyamalan has done a great job for her first film, and I can honestly see her improving if she decides to maybe try looking for her unique style and mixing it in with what her father is known for.
The Watchers releases in theaters June 7
