“The Watchers” is a confused movie, never quite being horror although it has those trappings in the beginning. Its digressions into folklore as explanation and exposition end up killing the pace and suspense of the film that had existed before that. Directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, the daughter of M. Night, the film evokes hints of her father’s work but does not reach the heights of his best movies.

The film begins with the revelation that there is a patch of forest in Ireland where humans get lost and never seem to come out. A man is trying to escape but keeps running into the same posted signage as if he is going in circles. As night approaches, a flight of birds suddenly flees the woods. The man sights something horrible and is dragged down into the earth.

Mina (Dakota Fanning) seems bored at her job at a pet store in Galway. She is tasked by the owner to deliver a golden conure (also known as a golden parakeet), which she names Darwin, to a buyer in Belfast.

On her way, Mina of course drives through the opening-scene forest. The road gets narrower and narrower as if the trees are hemming her in. Predictably, her car breaks down. She sets out with Darwin to try to find help, aimlessly calling “Hello!” as if she is in a bad horror movie.

She sights an older woman named Madeline (Olwen Fouere). The latter escorts her to a building named the “Coop.” Madeline explains that there is danger when darkness falls.

In the Coop, which is essentially a one-room shack with electricity but not much else, Mina meets Daniel (Oliver Finnegan) and Ciara (Georgina Campbell). Ciara’s husband John (Alistair Brammer), possibly the man in the opening scene, went to find help and has never returned.

The four occupants of the Coop have to line up in front of a mirror through which the “Watchers” observe them every night. These unseen creatures apparently like to see the humans engage in activities such as dancing.

The next day Madeline explains the rules. You have to be in the Coop by sunset or you will die. The Watchers are afraid of the light so you can go out by day. You cannot enter their underground burrows, where they hide during the day. It appears that the humans spend their daylight time scavenging for food.

Mina and Daniel one day decide to go into a burrow. Daniel lowers Mina down by a rope. At the bottom, she finds human artifacts like a bicycle and a video camera. She helps Daniel raise these up to the surface.

Daniel rigs up the video camera outside the Coop so that they can see a Watcher. That night John (or is it?) shows up at the door begging to be let in. All you can see via the camera are his bare legs and feet. Ciara naturally wants to let him in. But the others are suspicious and eventually “John” destroys the camera. Then there is noise outside as the creatures pound on the mirror which results in it cracking but not breaking.

Soon the occupants of the Coop discover an underground bunker entrance in the floor. Going down they find video files of a professor who describes a way to escape.

When I left the screening of this picture, I wasn’t very impressed by it. I found the ending unfulfilling.
I did like the folkloric basis which ends up underpinning the mystery of the forest. But I felt that the use of the underground bunker and Mina’s subsequent journey to the professor’s university office was clunky in its delivery of the knowledge. There also seemed to me to be inconsistencies between what the folklore was stated to be and what I witnessed in the forest.

The whole underground bunker sequence was so reminiscent of the TV show “Lost” that I was shocked that it was used as a trope. While it had the potential to be revelatory, it ended up being a large prop for a computer screen. The scene with the video files of the professor went on too long and weakened the pace of the picture.

Similarly, I felt that when we finally saw the Watchers that it was underwhelming given all the suspense leading up to that moment. It was as if the special effects budget was too small to create anything unique or interesting.

There also is very little character development. The lack of intimacy between the people in the Coop does not allow us to get to know them better. After all, there are only four of them, so it should have been easy to devote some screen time to who they really are as people.

The mundanity of their daily lives as time progresses also is dull and destroys the tension. They are trapped but is that interesting?

When action finally happens as they attempt to escape or interact with the Watchers, those scenes are intriguing. The whole premise of being trapped in a forest and being watched is excellent.

I enjoyed the opening scene and others in which the eeriness of the setting is emphasized. The wonder about who the Watchers are is tangibly created by the script.

The ultimate fault is the failure of the screenplay. Had the horror aspects been more highlighted, the movie would have had more focus and punch. But the lack of development of the characters means that there is no audience investment in what happens to them.

The editing also is poor. Scenes that involved no action, such as Mina’s excursion into the university or being in the pet store, are dragged out to boring length. They chop up the film in terms of pacing.
In essence, this reminded me of a “B” movie. It could have been made in the 1950’s during the height of such science-fiction films.

I can give this film an “A” for effort. The premise is good, but poorly executed. A bad screenplay is too choppy and does not develop the characters.

Ironically, however, I cannot say that I was ever bored. On the flip side, I wasn’t excited either most of the time.

Two and a half out of five stars

From producer M. Night Shyamalan comes “The Watchers,” written for the screen and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan and based on the novel by A.M. Shine. The film follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night.

You can’t see them, but they see everything.

Starring: Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Oliver Finnegan, and Olwen Fouere
Directed by: Ishana Night Shyamalan
Written by: Ishana Night Shyamalan
Based on the novel by A.M. Shine