The Stream: The potentially creepy plot gets pretty silly and disjointed.

The Big Screen: The eerie setting and cool production design.

The Final Bill: Despite a creepy setting and interesting premise, the story fails deliver on any scares, interest and overall doesn’t make much sense.

– Trip Fontaine
Director: Ishana Shyamalan
Writers: Ishana Shyamalan based on a novel by A.M. Shine
Stars: Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouéré, Oliver Finnegan, Alistair Brammer
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller, Fantasy
Rating: PG-13 for violence, terror and some thematic elements.
Runtime: 1 hour 35 minutes
Production Companies: Blinding Edge Pictures, Inimitable Pictures, New Line Cinema, Warner Bros.
Platform: In theaters June 7, 2024
Notable Trailers: The Crow, Trap, Horizon

Hey, Streamers! If you weren’t aware, there are two Shyamalan movies coming out this summer. M. Knight’s comes out in August, but this month, the debut feature film by his daughter, Ishana, premieres in theaters. Ishana Shyamalan wrote and directed The Watchers, which is based on a novel by A. M. Shine. In The Watchers, Dakota Fanning plays Mina, an American woman working in a pet shop in Ireland. Despite being mired in loneliness and depression, Mina has to deliver a parrot for the shop to a zoo in Belfast. Somehow Mina gets misdirected, and her car breaks down in mysterious woods in the countryside where she can’t escape. Creepy creatures, odd mythology and cabin-in-the-woods hijinks ensue.

The Watchers is a mixed bag. On one hand, Ishana Shyamalan has a good eye for production design and setting a tone. The Watchers is a movie that looks really good. If Shyamalan wanted to make a creepy movie, she succeeded by setting the appropriate mood. The Irish woods are so dark, cold and very claustrophobic. It is very clear that it is not a safe place. The shelter that Mina encounters is a beautiful anomaly that only heightens the creep-factor of the movie. Unfortunately, not much else contributes to the creep-factor.

On the other hand, the story that The Watcher is telling doesn’t make much sense. I understand that it is a horror-fantasy movie that isn’t trying to be realistic, but the characters don’t do things that make sense. The internal logic of the movie is all over the place. The timing of what occurs is confusing. Ishana Shyamalan tries to deliver the same thrills that her father does, and it seems she falls into the same patterns as he has. It’s a good-looking movie with a potentially interesting premise and an appropriately creepy tone, but the plot actually collapses in on itself. It is not a boring movie though there is an exposition dump explaining a key mythology that may draw out a yawn. Overall, it just doesn’t make sense and therefore becomes silly and annoying.

Ultimately, The Watchers is a disappointing feature debut for Ishana Shyamalan. The overall design of the film is cool and creepy, but the story lets the movie down. It is not scary and otherwise doesn’t make much sense. The characters do dumb things and there are convenient contrivances around many corners. The Watchers would be a decent streaming experience at home, so grab a handful when it’s available on your chosen streaming platform.