Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

The Watchers Blu-ray Movie Review

Freshman slump.

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.

For a synopsis and light roast of The Watchers, please see my review of the 4K edition or check out Brian Orndorf's similarly lukewarm theatrical coverage. Warner Bros. also offers this stand-alone Blu-ray edition with a comparatively decent A/V presentation and the same extras. Neither are blind buy material, but fans may want to indulge.

The Watchers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

As usual, please see my review of the separate UHD edition for a general outline of the film's visual aesthetic, which in this case is striking at times in its native 4K. The Blu-ray's comparatively good but inevitably format-limited 1080p/SDR transfer actually has a few small advantages over its UHD counterpart, however, in that it isn't quite as pervasively dark during key moments -- this probably isn't the correct critique to make if we're talking pure visual accuracy, but select scenes seemed unnaturally dim in HDR10 so I'm going to side with what's easier to follow from a layman's perspective. The trade-off, of course, is less perceivable fine detail and a lower sense of three-dimensionality that made portions of the 4K's transfer literally stand out, not to mention more limited mid-range black levels that give off a sense of sporadic black crush and light posterization. More often than not, what you get here is exactly what you'd expect: a mostly solid presentation but one that doesn't look quite as finely nuanced as its UHD counterpart, with comparatively good color representation and an overall watchability that will hold up decently well on small to mid-sized displays.

The Watchers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

For details about the film's generally excellent Dolby Atmos mix, please see my review of the 4K edition.

The Watchers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with poster-themed artwork identical to the 4K edition and includes a Digital Copy but no slipcover. The limited bonus features are identical to the 4K and repeated below.

• 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 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.