Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		0.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

The Watchers 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Who watches The Watchers?

Reviewed by Randy Miller III August 28, 2024

The apple falls exactly as close to the tree as you feared in Ishana Night Shyamalan's The Watchers, produced by proud papa M. Night and adapted from a story by A.M. Shine. Much like the more well-known Shyamalan's movies, it features an intriguing premise but stumbles in shockingly short order, giving away its bad hand within the first 15 minutes and never really recovering. Overloaded with lukewarm mythology, boredom, non-stop exposition dumps, and frustratingly sleek cinematography, The Watchers will have you watching your watch long before the credits roll.

The Watchers opens vaguely with an unnamed young man seemingly trapped in the woods... and not just any woods, mind you. This patch of forest in northern Ireland apparently can't be found on any map and is a place that "lost souls" are drawn towards. Long story short: he panics while being stuck in an endless maze, birds fly by, hissing noises, and he basically disappears. Cut to despondent Mina (Dakota Fanning), an American living in nearby Galway, who barely works in a pet shop and stares blankly between vape breaks. Her boss tasks Mina with delivering a valuable yellow talking bird to a customer in the woods, and naturally she ends up in "lost souls" territory. Wandering aimlessly while continuously talking to herself -- which, due to the film's sporadically poor visual storytelling, is apparently necessary -- she eventually encounters an old woman who leads her towards a concrete bunker called "The Coop", which is also inhabited by two other twenty-somethings, Ciara (Georgina Campbell) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan). Like the old woman, Madeline (Olwen Fouéré), they've been trapped there against their will for quite some time.

In the first of many, many exposition dumps, Madeline lays out the situation and ground rules of "The Coop", which is something like an observation room dominated by a large, two-way mirror. Apparently their group is being studied by an unseen race of beings known as "Watchers" who stalk the forest at night -- so no going outside, obviously -- and hide in connected "Burrows" around the area by day. Never one to follow rules, Mina frequently tests her boundaries just like she did during childhood, where the accidental death of her mother has since haunted Mina these last fifteen years. This makes her learn the hard way a few times, which obviously angers Madeline, but Mina soon makes a few discoveries that help them better understand their plight. They even stumble upon a room where a professor lived and studied these mysterious creatures, but their main goal is figuring out how to escape the forest permanently.

Frustrating signs of promise dot The Watchers but, for the most part, it's a clumsily-realized story that's equal parts boring, obvious, and confusing. The backstory of these creatures is perhaps its worst attempt at sleight of hand, as is the obligatory twist that's practically a family tradition at this point. Yet those opening moments -- our vague and formless introduction to the woods, Mina's endless self-narration, the absurdly specific rule explanation -- are what really kill viewer confidence, setting up The Watchers for failure at the starting line. Even so, it's beautifully shot and at least hints at success during a few fleeting moments, but ultimately this only makes the end result feel like an almost totally missed opportunity at impressive first-attempt filmmaking. But who knows? Maybe unlike her father's largely declining career trajectory, Ishana Night Shyamalan's films will steadily improve during the next few years.

Critics and audiences rightly lambasted The Watchers just over two months ago, so it's almost surprising that Warner Bros. has offered it in dual 4K and Blu-ray editions right out of the gate. Even so, it's not a truly standout release in all categories, which unfortunately means the actual film has to do most of the heavy lifting here. It doesn't.

The Watchers 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

NOTE: These screenshots are sourced from the Blu-ray edition, available separately and reviewed here.

The Watchers is a largely well-shot film, one whose well-lit outdoor locations are frequently jaw-dropping and almost three-dimensional in their level of overall clarity and first-glance impact. (The woods at nighttime are a different story, unfortunately, with an overly dim atmosphere and often washed-out color that makes one appreciate how little of the film takes place there.) Luckily this 2160p/HDR10 (Dolby Vision compatible) transfer makes the most of the situation with a largely well-balanced approach that features excellent fine detail, solid depth, carefully controlled colors, and mostly good shadow detail that's aided by more precise black levels than those seen on the separate Blu-ray. Even so, I often found myself wanting just a little more out of the film's darkest moments, as overall brightness levels seemed unnaturally dialed back during several key moments with the brightest whites rarely reaching levels suitable to most HDR presentations. (Then again I didn't see The Watchers theatrically, so perhaps it's more accurate than I assume.) Yet fine detail and compositions do most of the driving here, and those with larger displays (65" or more) will certainly appreciate the additional resolution and relatively tight encoding found on this dual-layered disc.

The Watchers 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are even fewer complaints about The Watchers' sound design, which is admittedly gimmicky during a few cheap jump-scare moments but nonetheless appears to be a precise representation of its source material. Outside of a few moments where front-channel dialogue seemed lightly buried in the mix, the wide majority of its sonic elements are cleanly rendered with excellent use of surrounds, LFE, and specific discrete effects. It's largely well-balanced and a very active presentation, one that encourages high-volume playback but can be appreciated at normal levels too.

Optional subtitles, including English (SDH), are offered during the main feature and all extras listed below.

The Watchers 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with poster-themed artwork, a matching slipcover, and a Digital Copy code. The bonus features are decent enough for a run-through but mostly promotional in nature.

• Welcome to the Show: The Making of The Watchers (8:50) - This short production featurette includes interview bits with director Ishana Night Shyamalan, actors John Lynch and Olwen Fouéré, producer M. Night Shyamalan, cinematographer Eli Arenson, and other members of the cast and crew.

• Creating The Watchers (5:02) - A brief but focused featurette about realizing the mysterious creatures seen in the film with several returning participants as well as new ones like VFX supervisor Gabriel Regentin.

• Constructing the Coop (6:16) - Producer M. Night Shyamalan, director Ishana Night Shyamalan, writer A.M. Shine, production designer Ferdia Murphy, and others talk about the sets and their visual adaptation.

• Ainriochtán and the Irish Fairy Folklore (4:22) - Another similar featurette with several returning participants, this piece briefly discusses the legends and myths used in The Watchers' story.

• Deleted Scene: "Lair of Love" (9:29) - The black sheep of the bunch, this is a satirical set of mock reality show clips as partially seen in the finished film. Why couldn't these guys get trapped in the woods?

The Watchers 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ishana Night Shyamalan's The Watchers has all the intrigue and inevitable disappointment of her father's movies, tempting viewers with an engaging premise but falling victim to self-narration, exposition dumps, a few cheap jump scares, and way too much lore for a 102-minute story. Simply put, both the film and and its director's career don't have the best start, but hopefully the latter can recover. Warner Bros. offers The Watchers in separate Blu-ray and 4K UHD options, both offering comparatively good A/V merits without necessarily knocking it out of the park. The limited bonus features are what they are... which means collectively this one's for established fans, not blind buyers.