Watchers is the writing and directorial debut of Ishana Night Shyamalan, focusing on a group of of travelers that were lost in the woods.
Ishana Night Shyamalan is the writer and director of the film Watchers, starring Dakota Fanning. She is the daughter of film legend, M. Night Shyamalan who also acts as producer on the film. I didn’t know any of this, other than the title and the top billing star of the film. Watching the trailer, the film seemed to focus on Mina as she gets lost in the forest and discovering a strange building and darkness starting to fall. She’s told to enter the building immediately for her own safety and she does. She immediately notices that the room seems to be three concrete walls and a giant two way mirror where something or someone can see within. There she is taught the rules of the building, most important of which is that returning before nightfall is critical and that they are never to open the door during the night.
Based on the trailers I had seen, it appeared that the watchers may be some sort of cult or just some really weird people. Could even be some sort of corporation running some sort of social experiment. Regardless of who the watchers really are, the people within must put on a show of sorts for them, mostly just living within the confines of the their nightly cell.
For such a simple concept I was quite impressed with the film. With Shyamalan involved it comes as no surprise that there is a twist or two but within the context of the story they worked quite well. The lore of the story worked even better by the end. There was so little of it for the first half that I assumed we would never learn what was going on but thankfully I was wrong because the reveals were well worth it by the end. Overall the film kept me on the edge of my seat and was brilliantly written. I know that based on this film alone I look forward to seeing Ishana’s next project.
