By Seth Lukas Hynes
The Watchers
Starring Dakota Fanning and Olwen Fouere
Rated M
3.75/5
The Watchers is an engrossing, atmospheric horror film and a solid directorial debut for Ishana Shyamalan (M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter).
Mina (Dakota Fanning), a young artist, finds herself trapped in a remote forest in Ireland, observed every night by mysterious creatures called the Watchers.
The Watchers is a deeply eerie experience, drawing unease from both the claustrophobic “coop” the characters live in and the vast murky forest.
The Watchers are a little-seen but fearsome presence, and the characters are simple but engaging – the brash but good-hearted boy Daniel (Oliver Finnegan), the hopeful dancer girl Ciara (Georgina Campbell), the stoic no-nonsense leader Madeline (Olwen Fouéré).
The warm hues inside the coop contrast with the prisoners’ stress and their grim situation, and in a very interesting cinematography decision, every face other than Mina’s in the opening is angled away or out-of-focus, which highlights the closed-off nature of the coop.
The coop is a stage for the Watchers to study their human prisoners, but the film somewhat squanders this intriguing premise.
We gain little sense of a routine or norm for the Watchers to study, with much of the lopsided tension coming from Mina and the others breaking the rules (and Mina’s traumatic past is very flimsy).
Even so, the later narrative reveals unknown depths of observation for a gripping, brilliant climax.
The Watchers is an unfocused but unsettling film with a great ending, but the dialogue is a major roadblock.
Even M. Night’s good films can feel slightly stilted, but The Watchers unceremoniously dumps its lore on us and is full of blunt lines that needlessly describe shots or impressions that we can easily glean ourselves.
A promising horror debut from Ishana Shyamalan, The Watchers is playing in most Victorian cinemas.
