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The Watchers (2024)

 

The Watchers is an Ishana Shyamalan horror film about monsters in the forest.

Daughter of M. Night Shyamalan, Ishana makes her motion picture debut with a splash. She has a few solid actors to work with and draws what she can out of them with her father of course having taught her everything he knows. It really feels like one of his films and the writer A. M. Shine has an interesting story to tell that fits into the Shyamalan world. I half expected this film to follow Glass.

Olwen Fouere has been in a lot lately and I'm not complaining. The Northman was one of my top films of 2022. Texas Chainsaw Massacre while bad, was still improved by her acting. Here she plays the old woman who knows all the rules of the monsters in the forest.

The main character though is Mina who is supposed to be younger than Dakota Fanning actually is but she still sells the role well enough to pass as a twenty-year-old. She was such a great child actor in Man on Fire and War of the Worlds. Though my wife will remember her as Jane from The Twilight Saga of films. She has to carry the film, and in a way she does.

The film could have had some clean-up in terms of pacing and had more horror. It had one good scare and a handful of jump scares but halfway through the film it just gave up on trying to scare the audience and hoped that there was interest enough for people not to get bored. Result: B.

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