Director: Ishana Night Shyamalan  
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouéré, Oliver Finnegan 
Certificate: 15
Run Time: 102 mins

The Watchers is a supernatural horror that marks the directorial debut of Ishana Night Shyamalan. Based on the 2022 novel by A. M. Shine, the film follows Mina (Dakota Fanning), an American immigrant living in Ireland who struggles to come to terms with the death of her mother fifteen years prior. She works in a pet shop and is tasked with delivering a valuable golden parakeet to a zoo in Belfast. Unfortunately, her car breaks down en-route in a notoriously haunted forest – suspend your disbelief because the reality is the drive between Galway and Belfast is all via motorway! She quickly meets a trio that live in a bunker-like building nicknamed ‘The Coop’, where they must return every night or face a certain death. 

The Watchers is an odd film, with a real mix of promising and frustrating elements. It’s not particularly scary and Shyamalan fails to decide whether to lean into full-blown horror or embrace the twisted fairytale nature of the source material. While she manages to inject some atmosphere into the film, her direction isn’t as assured as her influential father yet but that’s to be expected. The melding of Irish suburbia with a fantastical forest felt rather awkward and I did get frustrated at Mina’s typical horror antics quite early on. 

Fortunately, the film picks up once Mina meets the trio and this is where The Watchers is at its best. A late chase sequence is particularly thrilling and the ideas of voyeurism and duality are interesting, but not fully explored. There’s a natural point for the film to end and it would have been a lean sub-80 minute experience but (perhaps a fault of the source material), it goes on for another 20 minutes of exposition and I found the ending very unsatisfying and protracted.  

Dakota Fanning could play this type of role in her sleep and does the best with what she’s got. But Mina is unfortunately rather unlikeable and Fanning’s saddled with some rather stilted dialogue. After her winning turn in Barbarian, Georgina Campbell fares better as Ciara and Olwen Fouéré is also impressionable – we’re not sure whether we can trust Madeline or not. Unfortunately, Fouéré is regularly riddled with plot exposition. 

Really elevating The Watchers is a tremendous score by Abel Korzeniowski. It’s hauntingly melodic and brooding and like many of his other works, does a lot of the heavy lifting. Eli Arenson’s cinematography is a mixed bag – sometimes, the lighting is too dark but at other times, he beautifully captures the forest settings. 

While The Watchers is a perfectly serviceable horror film and stronger in its middle act, it’s a shame Shyamalan’s debut is bookended by a frustrating beginning and end. Still, I’m excited to see her career progression because although this film feels like it’s a debut feature, she clearly has promise. 

⭐⭐ (Poor)