Film SPOILER Review: The Watchers
Synopsis and commentary for some Irish folklore with a side of cheese.
Let me just say: nepotism does not equal talent. An interesting premise is done a disservice by garbage acting, info dumping, and lots and lots of cheese.
This is the debut film for the daughter of the one hit wonder, M. Night Shyamalan. Okay, the Sixth Sense wasn’t his only good movie, but it was his peak. To prove this, I made a chart of the movies and shows he’s written in order from oldest to newest:
But this isn’t about M. Night. This is about his daughter, Ishana.
I just think it’s funny that just because M. Night wrote a cultural banger once, he’s got this undeserved “arthouse snobbery” that allows him to continue to feed the mediocre entertainment machine.
And because people continue to hope that his next movie will be the next Sixth Sense, the masses continue to hand him money. He has 3 movies that rank over a 7 rating. So if we do the math, he’s written 20 stories, 3 of which are considered “good.” This maths out to a 15% chance that he might put out something just as good for his next project. It took 16 years (2000-2016) between Unbreakable and Split, so here’s to another 8 years!
All that to say, he has the money to feed his heir’s pet projects, no matter how stupid. And stupid this movie is.
Directed by Ishana Shyamalan (following in daddy’s footsteps. And produced, i.e. funded, by daddy.)
A young artist gets stranded in an extensive, immaculate forest in western Ireland, where, after finding shelter, she becomes trapped alongside three strangers, stalked by mysterious creatures each night.
The premise of The Watchers is intriguing: a young woman suffers from some past trauma gets lost in the Irish countryside where she finds herself trapped by a group of malevolent creatures known as The Watchers.
I love a good creature feature, as long as they’re done right. I think most would agree that as long as you don’t see the creature too often, and it’s designed as something to fear, then that’s the bare minimum. But a creature is nothing without story.
Please do NOT read ahead if you don’t want spoilers— you have been warned! :)
The movie begins with a man frantically running through the woods and seeing a sign with a number and “point of no return” written on it. Well, he moves past the sign and as it gets darker, there’s movement in the woods. He runs for it.
The beginning is interesting and is meant to get the viewer excited for what’s to come. I did like this, and I wanted to know more, so I continued to watch. Well, the guy eventually gets caught by the unknown entity and is dragged away.
The scene switches to Dakota Fanning as Mina working at a pet store. We see her sketching a customer, while appearing to be sad/bored.
If the premise didn’t say she was an “artist,” I would not have assumed as much seeing as how her supposed “drawings” were garbage. Just being honest… everybody doodles, talent or not.
Anyway, her boss tasks her with transporting a golden conure (it’s a yellow parrot) to a special client in the country. Mina seems not to mind, and off she goes.
The moment any animal is involved in a “horror” movie (you’ll see me use quotes a lot), I immediately fear for the creature. This was no different, but I’m happy to report the conure is safe and sound.
The next scene is her telling the conure to “try not to die” as she goes out for the evening, which it learns and repeats throughout the movie. I honestly don’t understand the purpose of this next scene because she apparently likes to dress up like someone else and meet men in bars, telling them lies about who she is. Okay.
With conure in tow, she talks to the little bird about how she likes to “play dress up” sometimes… it’s just something she does. Which, I *think* I understand why the hack writer put this in, but it doesn’t make it good, and it’s never mentioned again. She also reveals to the bird that her mom died… 15 years ago.
As she drives, she continually listens to a voicemail from her sister about her mom’s memorial service (they still hold those after 15 years? Let the dead rest, man!). Her vehicle randomly breaks down, and she takes the bird and looks for help. When she walks back to the car, oh no! The car is gone. OKAY.
If she left the bird in the car, would the bird have also disappeared?
So now she’s trapped in the woods and happens to come across a bunker of sorts right as the sun sets, and an old woman tells her to hurry inside.
Ah, the plot of convenience.
Inside, Mina meets Danny and Ciara, while the old woman who let her inside is Madeline. Madeline tells her to face the mirror and that they’re being watched. There’s a rising noise that Madeline tells her is “applause” because Mina is new and the watchers are happy. oKaY.
Ciara tells her that she has a husband, who went for help a while ago and didn’t come back—it’s easy to spot that this was the man from the beginning.
“Character building” happens (notice the quotes), where after learning the rules, Mina bucks the system and wants to go down into one of the burrows that the watchers retreat into during the day. Danny protests, but agrees to help her. She finds a camera, a flashlight, and some other junk in the hole and brings it back up. She did have a brush with one of the watchers, but it burned in the light and slinked away.
I say character building in quotes because I don’t really get a feel for anyone here. The only person I cared about at all was Ciara. Even Dakota Fanning was lackluster in this one, even though I normally like her acting.
They hook up the camera to the outside to see if they can see a watcher, since no one had at that point. What we get is someone standing there, knocking at the door. He says it’s John (Ciara’s husband) wanting in. We, as the viewers, know he’s dead. It’s up to the characters to help Ciara realize that it’s not him.
When Ciara tests him by asking him what book she’s reading, he fails… but she’s not ready to admit it’s not him. He looks into the camera (yup, guy from beginning), and pleas for her to help, then is dragged away. Madeline claims they broke the rules too much and now the watchers are mad. While in their rage, the watchers crack the glass a little, but then leave them be the rest of the night. In the morning, Mina returns the stuff she took from the burrow.
Flashback: Mina is young in the car with her mom and sister. She’s being a stupid brat, and her mom crashes and dies. Her sister is banged up, but Mina walks away unscathed. The only takeaway from this moment is that Mina “doesn’t follow the rules” and it got her mom killed.
OKAY.
So, time passes, and Mina finds Danny arguing with Madeline. Apparently, he felt they shouldn’t trust Madeline and ties her up, running to the bunker and leaving M&M out in the woods after sunset. They hide in a rotting tree stump to “hide their smell”. Dumb. So they get to see watchers in the shadows. Yes, they’re eerie in the shadows. I can get behind that.
After not seeing M&M in the room, the watchers run off to find them in the woods. M&M take advantage of the situation and plead with Danny to let them in. Mina uses a flimsy reasoning technique that I don’t even want to repeat here because it’s honestly LAME.
And now, for the info dump.
So the watchers are Changelings, or Fairies, or whatever the hell. Madeline was some professor of mythology and “willingly came out there” to study them in the wild. As she tells her story, the watchers return, more mad than ever, and set to breaking the glass. Just when they thought all was lost, they find a door in the floor.
I mean, COME ON. You’ve been trapped there for months, and you’re just now seeing the door in the floor? I call shenanigans.
They get in just in time and there’s another load of info dumping. The bunker’s bunker had an archive of video diaries from “the professor” who built the human menagerie. Mina watches a few of them, sees one video where he “befriends” a watcher, then she goes to the final video where he instructs them on how to get out, and to follow the birds.
Ooohh kaaayyy
So after some cheese-fueled dancing between Ciara and Danny, they set out the next morning to find the professor’s boat, while using the conure bird to help guide them. They find the boat just in the nick of time, but Danny sees “John” in the woods and goes to help him.
Stupid, dumb, stupid, dummer!
So “John” carves a nonsense symbol in Danny’s forehead before killing him by raking claws through his throat. A bunch of Changelings that look like John emerge, completely naked with their balls covered in misty forest censorship.
So, why was the John who killed Danny the only one wearing clothes?
They escape, and Mina sets out to destroy the professor’s work at the university (he asked someone to do this in one of the video diaries). More info dumping ensues about how they were fairies and had children with humans, which led to the changelings, and the professor was all, “this power is awesome,” la de daaaa. There’s a tapestry depicting this on the wall and it’s supposed to be all meaningful and emotional, but it was reminiscent of the cringy cave painting scene with Jon and Dany in Game of Thrones. If you know, you know.
Anyway, Mina finds some pictures, her face changes, then the scene cuts to her at Ciara’s house to show them to her. Turns out, Madeline was the professor’s wife, and she was long dead.
Dun dun DUNNNNN!
The real Ciara comes up the driveway, and “Madeline” does changeling crap and knocks Ciara out after she comes inside. “Madeline” was the changeling that the professor befriended in the video. Oh no! She chases Mina around, morphing into everyone from the movie, then comes back to the house looking like Mina. Madeline tells her she’s always been different, is a “day walker” and couldn’t wait to leave the forest. okAy.
I mean, couldn’t you always leave the forest? Or is this plot convenience?
Madeline tries to kill Mina by slowly slicing her wrist with the sharpest gangly fingernails known to man, before Mina “reasons” with her about stupidity.
And it’s stupid.
Here’s part of the reasoning (there’s probably more to it, but at this point I was checked out): Madeline is half human, because some depraved sex addict had children WITH. THE. CHANGELINGS. That’s right, if horny enough, even the greasiest of incels would hit that.
So in an attempt to make Madeline “special,” the sophistication of Ishana’s “writing” pours out in such beautiful depraved “you-don’t-get-it-because-you’re-not-smart-like-me” way. Madeline bursts through the window after sprouting wings for some reason, looking like gollum on a rooftop.
Sniff them farts, daughter of M. Night. I bet they taste like vanilla beans too.
The movie ends with Mina reconnecting with her twin sister, and the directing cuts between them are atrocious. I guess daddy ran out of money to have Fanning appear twice on screen. The conure floats to the window where we see they’re being watched by Madeline disguised as a soulless redhead.
The End.
That’s it. If after reading this you still want to watch it, you might be entertained by it… who knows? I’m not here to begrudge anyone of having a little fun.
In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with the actual directing (except at the end), but the story is a ball of stinking rot that spoils everything. The creatures weren’t terrible… most of the shots were dark, leaving things up to the viewers imagination, which is good. The transitioning effect of the changelings also wasn’t terrible, but like I said earlier, a good creature feature also has a story.
And honestly? I’m tired of changelings and fairies and that type of folklore. And I’m Irish(-ish).
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