Earlier this year, Ishana Night Shyamalan made her directorial feature debut with The Watchers. A supernatural horror movie steeped in Irish folklore, it received mixed reviews, much like a lot of her famous father’s films, and had a divisive twist ending. However, it’s undeniably intriguing, and I was glad to revisit the film with The Watchers 4K release, which is now available.
“This forest isn’t charted on any map. Every car breaks down at its treeline. Mina’s is no different. Left stranded, she is forced into the dark woodland only to find a woman shouting, urging Mina to run to a concrete bunker. As the door slams behind her, the building is besieged by screams. Mina finds herself in a room with a wall of glass, and an electric light that activates at nightfall, when the Watchers come above ground. These creatures emerge to observe their captive humans, and terrible things happen to anyone who doesn’t reach the bunker in time,” says the official description.
First off, The Watchers 4K release really looks great, with the dark lighting of the forest really standing out and setting a tense tone. The film also starts extremely strong, as Dakota Fanning’s Mina finds herself lost in a magical forest and then seeks solace in a windowed bunker that has several other occupants. The story takes its time, peeling back layers of what the titular watchers are, and it’s genuinely frightening. Fanning also does a great job of really showing the uneasiness of the situation and the uncertain passage of time in her performance.
I did have some issues with The Watchers when I saw it in theaters. I thought the movie went on a bit too long and extended past the natural ending point, explaining a bit too much when an ambiguous ending would’ve been more effective. While I still don’t love the final act, I quite enjoyed the rewatch, keeping an eye out for small details and really admiring the craft of what Ishana did with the actual creatures, which are pretty stellar.
The Watchers 4K release comes with quite a few bonus features. There are four featurettes that are all worth checking out: “Welcome to the Show: The Making of the Watchers” is a nine-minute video that goes into the behind-the-scenes of the production (including M. Night sharing a nice story about why he thought the book would fit his daughter); “Creating the Watchers” is a five-minute look at the creatures and all the design that went into them (it’s really fascinating, and I could’ve seen them get far more detailed than they go here); “Constructing the Coop” is a six-minute look at the set, which led to the surprising reveal that they had two versions of the bunker built (one in the woods and another on a sound stage) as I never spotted any differences while watching; and finally, “Ainriochtán and the Irish Fairy Folklore,” which is a four-and-a-half-minute look at Irish folklore and how that plays into the film’s themes.
However, the best bonus feature is a nine-and-a-half-minute full version of Lair of Love, which is the cheesy reality dating show that the group watches during the movie since it’s the only DVD at their disposal. As more of a fan of reality television than I’d like to admit, it is a hilarious spoof of the genre and is just ridiculous. I highly recommend checking it out and would love to see Ishana Night Shyamalan do some more social satire in the future. It’s a super cool addition, and I love that there’s a watchable mini-episode of this goofy show within a movie.
The Watchers 4K Review: Final Verdict
The Watchers 4K release is a worthwhile addition to any Shyamalan fan. Ishana’s ambitious feature debut doesn’t fully stick the landing, but she gets really strong performances by Dakota Fanning and Oliver Finnegan and shows a knack for crafting compelling stories. She’s certainly a filmmaker I want to see more of in the future, and I’m glad I revisited the supernatural horror movie.
Disclosure: ComingSoon has The Watchers 4K review.
