“The Watchers”: An Attempt on Supernatural Horror
The directorial debut of Ishana Night Shyamalan was not well received by audiences.
Summary
Mina, employee of a small pet shop in Galway, is commissioned by her boss to deliver a valuable type of parrot to a zoo in Belfast. In the middle of the ride, her car breaks down, living her stranded in the middle of a forest. Our protagonist soon gets acquainted with a group of people living there, and finds that there are creatures lurking among the trees, watching their every movement.
An Inconsistent Mystery
The director had many interesting ideas, but she did not find a thread to connect them in a manner that was cohesive.
At the beginning, some questions are set regarding the mystery of the forest, and the identities of the people who find themselves trapped there. However, the film ends, and most of them are still unanswered.
The story doesn’t take any discernible direction, so you spend most of the running time trying to figure out where is it going, what is it trying to communicate. Is this about people trying to escape? Is it about discovering the origin of the creatures watching them?
Why these people? At a certain point, I believe it was suggested that the answer to that was in the characters’ backstory, that the forest attracted a certain kind of person. For example, Mina, the protagonist, is deeply traumatized by the death of her mother, which she feels guilty about. But that is never developed further.
Also, there is not a good build up for the “revelations”, so every time something important happened, it feels random. At times, it looks like even the director herself did not know what she was trying to do.
The screenplay being so messy is the main cause of The Watchers failure. With the help of a more experienced writer, I dare say that Shyamalan could have gotten a better result.
The performances, though not extraordinary, are good. And from time to time the film achieves an interesting atmosphere, with beautiful and gloomy takes of the Irish forests, and the score of Abel Korzeniowski.
I believe there is potential here, but there is a lot of work to do.
Box Office Numbers
The Watchers was poorly received by audiences and critics alike.
With a production budget of $30.000.000, the film grossed only $19.000.000 domestically. When it comes to the international markets, the website The Numbers reports earnings a little over $13.000.000, while Box Office Mojo sets them at $32.000.000. One way or another, in the best of cases, the film managed to earn around $51.000.000; quite insufficient to cover its costs.
I tend to be very more ruthless with my criticism, but in this case I will give this director the benefit of the doubt because it is her first film, and because she is young. She admires her father’s style and wants to do something like him, but it would be convenient for her to find her own voice, and prepare herself better if she wants to write her own scripts.
We should also recognize that M. Night Shyamalan himself, even though he has some very good films, has also released some underwhelming projects. Maybe Ishana will surprise us in time.
