In The Watchers, The Apple doesn't fall far from The Tree: Film Review
Ishana Night Shyamalan's horror debut shifts and changes into a shade of familiar films
Rusted and long forgotten items lie deep beneath the surface. Animals trapped in their cages. Passively rotting away on a couch as you let a reality show play that you’ve become all too familiar with. Ishana Night Shyamalan’s debut film is all too quick to align itself with contemporary horror films that delve into our deeply repressed traumas. Having gained prominence in the cultural zeitgeist through Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018) and The Babadook (2014), trauma has since taken the metaphorical form of many figures in contemporary horror. The Watchers, if significant of anything, is symbolic of this trauma trend becoming completely exhausted.
In The Watchers, we are introduced to Mina (Dakota Fanning), a young American living in the distant and cold west of Ireland. As part of her job in a pet store, she is tasked with transporting a loquacious bird, which she affectionately names Darwin, from Galway to a zoo just outside of Belfast in Northern Ireland. On her journey we learn of her mother’s passing and it is tacitly stated that Mina’s distance from America may be more intentional than we realise. Along the way, Mina’s car inexplicably breaks down on a long dirt road in an expansive and sepulchral forrest. Taking Darwin with her, she searches amongst the trees before seeing an older woman amongst the forestry. It is gradually getting darker; aggressive growling and rustling is becoming persistent among the leaves. “You’ll have to run if you want to live” the lady calls out, holding open a bulwark like industrial door that reveals a warm and comfortable interior. Mina sprints inside and meets a small group of people; Madeline (Olwen Fouéré), Ciara (Georgina Campbell) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan). In this limited square room, there is a table, a couch, a gramophone, a TV and a giant one way mirror which allows the outside creatures to peer in and watch these strangers.
Almost immediately, Ishana Night Shyamalan’s mystery thriller begins to bear the untenable marks that her fathers (M. Night Shyamalan) films wear so proudly. Mina is introduced to her squalid environment so efficiently through a series of overtly expository and wooden dialogue scenes. The dialogue is of a particular detriment to the film as while it elucidates the world that Mina has stumbled upon effectively, it fails to inform anyones character. The little that is revealed concerns peoples severed connections to loved ones, their pasts still keeping a watchful eye over them. Ironically, in a film that concerns separating yourself from your traumatic past, its characters are not permitted any dimensions beyond their troubled histories.
This lack of character of course impacts the overall stakes of the film; with nobody to connect to, there is little chance for emotional involvement for the audience. However, there is an evident attempt by Finnegan to compensate for this glaring deficit. Finnegan forms the character of Daniel into a very ungainly and nebbish one. His performance is the most evident, he uses an aberrant giggle which he issues at inappropriate times and tilts his head when talking, sometimes refusing eye contact. Unfortunately, with nothing to supplement these physical tics and mannerisms, the performance can be at times laughable and translates as mannered. The additional performances reflect their character’s hollow interior and are quite staid and uninteresting interpretations.
Shyamalan shows promise, however, in the occasional traditional horror set up. In a very intriguing scene concerning a tape recorder, the frame is used quite effectively with a reveal that is striking in its simplicity and restraint. The scene progresses predictably though not without some second guesses along the way. Shyamalan demonstrates how she understands the language of the genre but unfortunately her world never feels fully explored and her creatures are under utilised. The back half of the film ends up crowded by folkloric and mythological explanations and a climax that is grating in its heavy handedness.
In the end, The Watchers is alienating in its hermetic and cold nature, but, it is not without its intriguing moments. For the most part however, Ishana Night Shyamalan has made a film about creatures that mimic and learn the appearances and behaviours of humans that eerily resembles the weaker aspects of her fathers career.