Anyone who knows my taste in movies knows that I love ambition. There's nothing more satisfying than watching a filmmaker, especially a less experienced one, swing wildly above their weight class with ideas and concepts and pull it off, and even the misfires of this variety (of which there are many) are often fun to think back on. The Watchers, the directorial debut of Ishana Night Shyamalan, is definitely closer to the former category. In a way, it resembles the work of Ishana's father, M. Night, warts and all. It's got clunky dialogue and a third act that overstays it's welcome, but there's an undeniable visual spark and intriguing premise that make this one (mostly) a winner.
The Watchers very much leans into the idea of being watched by outside observers in its visual language, and even before Mina (Dakota Fanning) finds her way to the cabin where much of the film is set, Shyamalan and cinematographer Eli Arenson often set shots in a way as though we're seeing them from another's eyes, through windows, and from a distance. It gives the film an air of suitable menace that it manages to effectively keep for much of its runtime, giving the sense that the characters are constantly being stalked by the titular "Watchers" as they attempt to unravel what, exactly, is happening. This paranoia sews tension with every shot of the shadows, with the audience forced to listen and wonder if the Watchers are waiting, just out of view. The ambiguity, this constant uncertainty as to where the Watchers are or what they're doing, works a lot towards giving the monsters a decent amount of menace. Shyamlan wisely avoids showing the creatures in their entirety for much of the runtime, and the glimpses we do get are unnerving, from the lanky, treelike forms of their true selves to the not quite right human disguises they wear as the tension between them and the hapless travelers they've captured reaches a boiling point. Among the film's most creative ideas is the one-way mirror that serves as one of the cabin's walls, used by the Watchers to observe the main characters. The characters can see nothing, listening only to the screams and clapping of their audience. It's suitably creepy, wisely letting the audience fill in the blanks with their minds.
The film, unfortunately, does go off the rails as Shymalan abandons the "less is more" philosophy. While the reveal, the Watchers are vengeful faeries attempting to emulate human behavior, is inherently an excellent premise, giving the film a fantasy twist, it overplays it's hand in it's last third, delving deeper into the mythology and sacrificing what could've been an effectively creepy twist ending for a happier resolution. It lacks the bite it could've had, settling for something more sincere in its place. Fascinatingly, Ishana does tend to fall into the same pitfalls as her father, from his penchant for dropped balls in the third act to clunky dialogue. How the film gives exposition through dialogue never feels quite right, not quite surreal enough to feel fantastical nor realistic enough to feel entirely like real people. While it doesn't drag the film down too much, as I still found the characters charming enough to get by thanks to some very quietly affecting emotional beats, it's worth noting that it took me out of things just a tad.
The Watchers biggest strength and weakness, strangely, are one and the same: ambition. It grasps at concepts of grief, high fantasy, and trauma with a genuine passion and excitability that you can see on screen, but never quite devotes enough of itself to do any topic the full justice it deserves. Rather than sink the film under its weight, it makes it endearing and unique. It's got effective scares, cool monsters, and an undeniable eye for detail behind the camera that it's able to overcome these weaknesses and still weave an affecting, satisfying story. The Watchers definitely loses steam as it goes, but there's a spark of something here, and I'll be eager to see what its director has up her sleeve in the future. I guess you could say that I'll be an avid...watcher.
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