2024 saw the directorial debut of Ishana Night Shyamalan, the daughter of acclaimed filmmaker M. Night Skyamalan, with her new horror ‘The Watchers’ that his theaters on June 7th, just in time for the summer movie sprint.
While I didn’t see it during it’s lackluster theater run, it appeared on Max in time for Halloween, so I dove into the film this past week.
According to the official synopsis: “A 28-year-old artist gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. Finding shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are stalked by mysterious creatures every night.”
The film stars Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouere, Hannah Howland, Oliver Finnegan, and Alistair Brammer.
The opening sequence of the film shows John, who you later learn took a chance on trying to escape the forest, attempting to beat the timer on his watch and make his way out of the forest, but gets turned around and disorientated.
Once the timer stopped, nightfall began to descend and all the birds hastily flew away, signaling an impending doom. John attempts to climb a tree, but falls and is ultimately killed by something he is astonished to see (you find out midway through the movie).
Mina (Lucy), played by Fanning, is then the focal point of the film, along with her bird that she doesn’t seem to like but carries everywhere. Mina gets lost, and for some reason ventures deep into the forest in search of help, and then becomes sucked into the mysterious realm that the forest holds within.
The movie had a decent and watchable build for the first 45 minutes (if you can manage to stay awake) before delving into a classic twist that is now a benchmark of a Shyamalan movie.
However, the twist is terrible and brings the movie into a laughably ridiculous final sprint. It lacked any sense, completely pushed away any interest, and the ending was numbingly flat.
Sure, the acting was fine, but the story was downright terrible and demonstrated why the film was met with mostly-poor feedback.
A waste of time, at best.
