‘The Watchers’ Review: Ishana Night Shyamalan’s Feature Debut Falls Into Its Own Trap

The idea of following in your parent’s footsteps within a profession is an idea that never sounded appealing to me, but one can understand why someone would do it. It is an extremely personal decision, likely sparked from youth when a child discovers a moment or event surrounding said career via an introduction by their parent, and a spell is cast on them, seeing something profoundly special about the work being done in this field, thus tightening the bond between the family members. In the case of filmmaking (and the entertainment business at large), it is a common practice for talent to be passed down through the generations, with various opportunities to see if they have what it takes to make their mark the same way their parents did. This is where nepotism, one of the dirtiest words floating around Hollywood right now, comes into play. However, one thing is always clear about nepotism in entertainment or any other business: if you are good at what you do, it will show, and if you aren’t, well, that will show too. This passing of the torch has resulted in dozens of new artists forming their own creative paths, usually different from the one their parents had before. The brightest example is someone like Sofia Coppola, whose career could’ve been in the shadow of her father, Francis Ford Coppola, but instead, she found her unique creative voice and visual language in her first film. By doing this from the beginning of her career, she slowly has become one of the most celebrated directors of the last three decades.

Twenty-five years later, writer-director Ishana Night Shyamalan, daughter of director M. Night Shyamalan, is forging a similar path as she makes her feature directorial debut with The Watchers. This time is a little different for her, as The Watchers steps into the kind of films that her father is known for: a supernatural horror film with a complex set up and a third act twist. They made her father a household name in 1999 with his breakout hit The Sixth Sense, a cultural phenomenon released within one of the greatest years in cinema history. From that moment on, his template was born, and for better or worse, he has been releasing intriguing films that have entertained audiences around the world. There lies the challenge for Ishana Night Shyamalan and The Watchers, as it needs to operate as a film that can stand on its own as her feature debut and start making audiences recognize her voice as a filmmaker. It also has to live up to the high standard and expectations from the genre that became the calling card for most of her father’s movies. Unfortunately, The Watcher fails on both fronts, resulting in one of the biggest disappointments of the year.

We follow Mina (Dakota Fanning), an American girl in her late 20s who has moved to a small town in Ireland, away from her twin sister and the rest of her family. Working at a pet shop by day to cover the bills as she tries to become an artist in her spare time, she spends her time mostly alone, trying to forget her traumatic past, especially the death of her mother, and she is link to the car accident that took her life when Mina and her sister were little girls. Fanning is able to convey a sympathetic sense of despair within Mina that she carries with her day after day, as she goes through life running away from her past, literally changing her appearance to go to a local bar to pick up a guy, something she does regularly to not have to face herself. This, along with her stoic command throughout, is the reason why Fanning’s performance is the best in the film. When she arrives at work in the morning, she is told that she will be delivering a Golden Conure (a parrot) to a customer to a buyer in the Connemara countryside. In order to do so, Mina will have to take the bird through the remote, mysterious forests found near Connemara, which are expansive as we can see throughout the film via overhead shots that Shyamalan shows us. The place is a cold maze,; somewhere you don’t want to get trapped in, but of course, to get to the set-up of the film, she takes a wrong turn, and as she gets deep into the forest, her car turns off, along with every electronic device.

As Mina gets out of the car to check on the engine, the parrot repeats back what she told him when they started their trip, “Try not to die,” a humorous moment that is repeated throughout the film’s run time that becomes less effective as the film goes on. It is the kind of on-the-nose humor that can be found in her father’s films like The Happening or Old, but in those films, it feels more appropriate to the overall vibe of the film we’re watching than this, which is a joke just to provide levity in what should be a very tense scene. It undercuts the tension of the arrival of a hoard of birds flying in the sky as a creature starts charging towards Mina. Before she can think, she encounters Madeline (a bland performance from Olwen Fouéré), an old woman with long gray hair who tells her if Mina wants to survive, she needs to follow her. She grabs the parrot, abandoning the car, and runs with Madeline to a compound in the middle of the forest, where two other people, Ciara (Georgina Campbell) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan), await them. This is when the film presents its fascinating concept, originating from the novel of the same name by author A.M. Shine. These four survivors, in this compound known as “the Coop,” must essentially perform or be present to the monsters on the other side of the glass wall that Mina and the others face. The audience, much like our characters, are only able to hear the creatures, whom Madeline has named “the watchers,” beings that only come out at night to see their human “pets” showcase for them as their form of entertainment. As horrifying and intriguing of a premise as this, we spend so little time at night with these characters, with most of the film taking place during the day as they are trying to figure out ways to escape before the watchers return, that there felt like a lot of wasted opportunities to explore just how insidious these creatures are and the world they have built around them. We get a scene of Ciara dancing in front of the mirror to entertain, but it’s too short to see how this or any other attempts to entertain would make these monsters happy.

When you really start breaking down The Watchers and dive into what becomes an “escape from the woods” movie in the second half of the film, the more frustrating this feature becomes. The lore of the creatures (without giving too much away) is deeply rooted in Irish folklore, and a lingering supernatural, otherworldly element is attached to this original mythology to create the potential of something interesting. It’s the kind of mixture of fantasy, horror, and reality found in films like The Witch or The Babadook, but with clearer directional intention and focus than The Watchers, as well as movies with far fewer resources. But instead of showing us the terrors of this world, Shyamalan opts to tell us, and it becomes more nonsensical by the minute. We then don’t actually learn anything memorable about the formation of this world, why the creatures want to use these humans as entertainment pets, how “the coop” came into existence, how effective their escape plan is, and how their lives continue beyond the forest. It is a domino effect of plot holes that untangle as the film continues because Shyamalan doesn’t ground its premise in a relatable reality or allow the film time to establish intellectually compelling questions and answer them concisely. This is ultimately why the screenplay from Shyamalan, which is very faithful to the original source material, is the glaring weakness found at the core of this project. It is as if she read this book, loved everything about it, and tried to cram every idea the novel has into a less than two-hour movie, and didn’t allow herself the creative freedom to take a risk or two in changing details of the story to fit a better cinematic vision.

Shyamalan’s previous directorial experience was helming several episodes of the AppleTV+ series Servant, which she produces alongside her father, and it shows here because this story felt like it needed one of these two things: either – expand the story to a longer format to go into the rich history explained in this world, or- scrap some of the half dozen ideas she is trying to throw at the screen and simplify the overall project. In doing that, she could’ve then focused on creating memorable scares or terrifying images that could make up for what is lacking on the page. Instead, her direction is compromised by her adaptation, leaving a lot to be desired from someone whose father may not always make a good film, but, from a visual storytelling perspective, is one of the most fascinating modern directors behind a camera. The cinematography from Eli Arenson only exacerbates the issues as the film looks so dark at times that you can barely see the characters being chased by the creatures throughout the film, especially during the finale. And when you do finally see the watchers, you’re left with the feeling of “oh, that’s it,” as they feel like left over, unused, and unpolished CGI creatures from a Hobbit or Harry Potter prequel and aren’t that terrifying at all. The purpose of not showing a monster in a horror film is to build up the expectation of how scary this being could be once you see them later in the film, and The Watchers pays this off supremely clumsily.  

In making her first film, Ishana Night Shyamalan stumbles at trying to find her footing in a pale imitation of one of her father’s projects. By doing this, she’s fallen more in line with directors like Brandon and Caitlyn Cronenberg, whose features are nothing more than unimaginative, derivative artistic exercises that don’t come close to the genius of their parental figurehead and inspiration. In exploring a group of outsiders trapped within a forest with supernatural elements and creatures trying to hunt them down, the end result for The Watchers is a messy mashup of The Village, The Lady in the Water, The Happening, Old, and Knock at the Cabin–movies that have a distinctive point of view, which is the major thing missing from her feature directorial debut. While there is not much to praise for The Watchers, Ishana Night Shyamalan has my curiosity for what she does next. After all, her father took two films before he made The Sixth Sense, and no matter the quality of his subsequent projects over the years, there is always a glimmer of optimism when they are announced and a trailer is released. While The Watchers doesn’t work at all, it could just be the speed bump that this family has always had to overcome before they create something original and special.

Grade: D+

Warner Bros will release The Watchers only in theaters on June 7.