Review: The Watchers

Image courtesy of New Line Cinema.

The debut film of Ishana Night Shyamalan, "The Watchers," is similar to the work of her father, M. Night, at least his output of the past 20 years. It starts off somewhat promisingly before eventually biting off more than it can chew and ending on a note of disappointment.

In terms of mood and tone, "The Watchers" strikes the right note from the beginning, despite its lead character, Mina (Dakota Fanning) being yet in another of a long line of horror movie characters who are walking through the world with the burden of blaming themselves for a tragedy. In this case, it's her mother's death in a car accident for which Mina was somewhat responsible some years before.

As the film opens, she's depressive and working at a pet shop in Ireland, where she is asked to drive a rare bird that has made its way into the shop through the Irish countryside and deliver it to another shop. Her car breaks down in the dense woods and she soon begins to believe that she's not alone. A woman named Madeline (Olwen Fouere) attracts her attention and quickly shuttles her into a small house known as The Coop.

There, Mina meets two other strangers - Daniel (Oliver Finnegan), a seemingly troubled young man, and Ciara (Georgina Campbell), whose husband left several days prior to go find help. A man who appears to be dispatched by unseen creatures in the woods at the film's beginning is likely that husband. Mina is told the rules of the Watchers, the woodland creatures: all four of the people in the Coop must stand in a row and allow themselves to be watched through a one-way mirror by the Watchers, they must never turn their backs on them, and they must never leave the Coop at night.

During the day, Mina and some of her co-inhabitants make efforts in vain to escape, that is, until they discover an underground laboratory under the Coop that - of course - includes video footage of a professor who once lived there for the purpose of watching the Watchers. The four people in the Coop figure out a means of escape and plan on executing it.

While the first sections of "The Watchers" rely heavily on mood - and, for the most part, work well enough - it's once we get closer glimpses of the Watchers, a move that filmmakers should know to avoid for the sake of keeping intensity intact, that the film starts to lose its impact. Likewise, once we learn what these creatures are, it becomes even sillier.

M. Night Shyamalan was a rising directorial star in the late 1990s and early 2000s after "The Sixth Sense" was a surprise smash, although I preferred the moodier "Unbreakable" and the intense "Signs." After those films, his films became increasingly less successful. In recent years, he's had a few that have been more interesting than others ("Split" has its moments), but he's never quite recaptured that early magic. 

His daughter's directorial debut feels like a microcosm of his career. While never in the same league as her father's early work, the film's first half at least sets a mood that lures the viewer in, while the latter half of the picture starts to lag. She has some obvious talents, but I'm hoping they are put to better use on stronger material next time around.