By David Dent
If when watching, ahem, The Watchers, it feels like you’re being shown an M. Night Shyamalan movie, you’d be almost right; this is the feature debut from the director’s daughter Ishaman, and pa Shyamalan is one of the film’s producers.
Like Dad’s work, The Watchers is high concept, very odd in structure and has, if not a twist, then an end-of-movie reveal which answers some of the film’s many questions. Unlike M. Night’s last couple of offerings (and in particular 2021’s terrible Old) this is actually not bad.
Dakota Fanning plays Mina, an American with a tragic past, living in Ireland and working in a pet shop. When she’s asked to transport a valuable bird across the country to a zoo, she accepts the job, happy to spend time on her own with her avian passenger.
But when she drives through a dense forest (which we know from the film’s prologue houses a strange and murderous entity) Mina’s car breaks down. Looking for help she comes across an isolated cottage with three occupants, Ciara (Barbarian’s Georgina Campbell), Daniel (Oliver Finnegan) and an older woman, Madeline (the ubiquitous Olwen Fouéré).
Mina learns that the three are trapped in their house, watched over by some Lovecraftian ancient beings who only emerge at night, and her fate is to join them with no chance of escape. Their conditions are framed by strict rules within which they must exist, and their days are spent being bored and watching TV (a ‘Big Brother’ type programme seems about the only thing on, the show’s setup mirroring the household’s confinement). But as Mina learns more about the situation, it seems that there is a possibility of escape.
Things in The Watchers inevitably get more bizarre as the movie progresses and the exposition required to explain what we’re seeing threatens to upend the whole project (the film is based on a novel, and co-scripted by Irish author A.M. Shine). But for me the film stayed just the right side of intriguing; it looks fabulous (nice to see a film set in Ireland actually filmed in the place) and the creature reveals are quite something. It’s definitely a movie to see with as little prior knowledge as possible, but it’s strange and ultimately poignant piece.
The Watchers is available now in UK cinemas.
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