The Watched
A cabin in the woods is the focus of an unwieldy horror film from the daughter of M. Night Shyamalan.
Look ‘e here: Georgina Campbell, Dakota Fanning, Oliver Finnegan and Olwen Fouéré
Just because you’re in a horror film doesn’t mean you have to be stupid. Mina (Dakota Fanning) is a decidedly odd fish, an American working in a Galway pet shop who wears her low self-esteem on her sleeve. Given a chance to see the Irish countryside, she is entrusted with a golden conure to transport to its new owner over miles of rugged woodland. This is one pet shop that goes the extra mile. But, deep in them thar woods, Mina loses radio and satnav reception and her car grinds to a halt. Then, not having seen the film’s prologue, Mina ventures forth on foot into the forest, birdcage in hand. Eventually she stumbles across the wide-eyed, white-haired Madeline (Olwen Fouéré, fast becoming the Christopher Lee of 21st century horror), who takes her to the ‘Coop’, a glass-fronted bunker that she shares with Ciara (Georgina Campbell) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan). They’re safe, she says, so long as they can be seen by “the Watchers” and abide by her strict set of rules. “Just be yourself,” she says, reassuringly.
Ciara and Daniel have been there for months now, in spite of the absence of a kitchen or any signs of sustenance, let alone bathroom facilities (although there’s a brief reference to a bucket). And all they have for entertainment is a gramophone and a DVD player with a single disc: a copy of a Big Brother-style reality show called Lair of Love. Soon, Mina is mouthing the dialogue to the show off by heart, suggesting that The Watched might have something genuinely disturbing up its sleeve. However, unlike the contestants of the reality show – ‘Season 3’ – there is no love lost between this dour quartet, who make for spectacularly dull company.
As a child star, Dakota Fanning was a most engaging presence, but here her Mina is an insipid figure, spouting an inane running commentary on her travails, while warning her omnipresent parakeet, “you wouldn’t like me if you knew the real me.” Mina does have a backstory, but where it fits into the mystery of the woods seems incidental, and is withheld from us like much of the narrative.
Before the film changes tack halfway through, The Watched feels like an attempt at the Theatre of the Absurd written by a twelve-year-old. Lurching from hackneyed cabin-in-the-woods horror to more batty Irish folklore, the film relies far too heavily on the viewer’s patience as it drip-feeds its sinister secrets. Thus, being excluded from what is really going on, we are ultimately ostracised from the drama. It might come as no surprise, then, that this marks the feature debut of a director who just turned twenty-three in January. But then her father is the master of horror, M. Night Shyamalan, who should have had a greater hand in shaping the screenplay. But then her father’s films of late have not exactly been up to snuff.
Original title: The Watchers.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouéré, Oliver Finnegan, John Lynch.
Dir Ishana Night Shyamalan, Pro M. Night Shyamalan, Ashwin Rajan and Nimitt Mankad, Screenplay Ishana Night Shyamalan, from the novel The Watchers by A.M. Shine Ph Eli Arenson, Pro Des Ferdia Murphy, Ed Job ter Burg, Music Abel Korzeniowski, Costumes Frank Gallacher, Sound Sylvain Bellemare, Francis Gauthier and Paul Lucien Col.
New Line Cinema/Blinding Edge Pictures/Inimitable Pictures-Warner Bros.
101 mins. USA. 2024. UK and US Rel: 7 June 2024. Cert. 15.
