Movie Review: The Watchers

The Watchers marks the directorial debut of Ishana Night Shyamalan, the daughter of director M. Night Shyamalan. Since breaking out in 1999 with The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan has been one of the most polarizing directors over the last almost thirty years, so following in his footsteps is quite a task. But Ishana shows that she is a real-deal filmmaker with this well-made, eerie, flawed folk horror movie.

The Watchers finds Mina (Dakota Johnson) living in Ireland away from her family due to a tragedy that has haunted her for over a decade. An aspiring artist who works at a pet store during the day, she is tasked with delivering a special bird to a client a few hours away. While passing through a forest that is not on the map, Mina’s car dies and she gets lost while trying to find help. She soon realizes she has stumbled upon something more sinister and ends up taking shelter with four strangers in an isolated home in the middle of the forest, where they protect themselves at night from mysterious creatures they call the Watchers.

The Watchers is a perfect balance of slow-burning suspense and jump-scares. Shyamalan doesn’t overuse the jump-scares but places the few that she does use perfectly, which makes them effective. Most of the movie is a slow-burning mystery as to what the creatures in the forest are. There are a lot of scenes of heavy, clunky exposition, mostly said by Madeline (Olwen Fouéré), the stranger who has been captive in the forest the longest, explaining the rules of the forest and everything she knows about the creatures. These scenes sometimes work but often feel like an exposition dump. The scenes where there is little to no dialog are the scenes where Shyamalan shines as a director, showing her keen visual eye and ability to build tension while never giving too much away.

The opening Jaws-like sequence was a great way to kick off the movie. It’s intense, thrilling, and genuinely scary as an unknown man wanders the woods Mina would eventually get lost in. But then it takes too long to get back into the woods, as we are introduced to Mina and learn a bit about her. This is all character and story setup, but some of it could have easily been cut and we would have still been able to understand Mina and her life to the same effect. The final act of the film also takes place outside of the woods and could have been reduced by several minutes. The best part of the movie is when we are in the woods and though we are in there for the majority of the runtime, it doesn’t feel like we were in there long enough. I wish we lived in the woods more and let the story and characters develop even more. It felt like there was still so much to explore in terms of the layout of the land, the folk story, and even the Watchers, who are genuinely terrifying and could have used an additional few scenes to add to their scariness.

Despite the film’s flaws, The Watchers is an impressive debut from Shyamalan. The film looks great, with interesting production design and cinematography. The score by Abel Korzeniowski is one of my favorites of the year and elevates the tension in the film. While the beginning and the end of the film lack excitement, everything that takes place inside the woods is a great movie, which gives me hope for Shyamalan’s future as a filmmaker.

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