"The Watchers" Film Thoughts

 

Language: English

2024

Running time: 1hr 42min

From IMDb:

A young artist gets stranded in an extensive, immaculate forest in western Ireland, where, after finding shelter, she becomes trapped alongside three strangers, stalked by mysterious creatures each night.

Quote:

Darwin:  "Try not to die."

Thoughts:

I liked this.  

I had my suspicions about a character and while I wasn't 100% spot on, I was in the ballpark.

What was interesting was that when I didn't get the M. Night Shyamalan twist or catch him in the film, it made go 'hmm' until I saw the credits and realized why.

While he's a producer, this film being written and directed by his daughter was my first 'ahh' moment, the second came in seeing this was based off a book by A.M. Shine which queued the next.  Like "A Cabin in the Woods" I imagine there was the sticking close to the novel type of undertaking.  

As I've not read either I can't confirm this as yay or nay, but it made it make sense as far as expecting there to be some huge twist and there not being one.

I liked that this story is based in Irish mythos which is more of a nod to the book in that regard.  

All in all, that creepy tingly sensation was there, the character of Mina in context of the story worked, and for sure reminded me that I'd like to visit Ireland someday.  

There are other things one could think about in regard to this film and implications such as:

the hierarchy with the mythos and what happened

Darwin the bird mimicking of Mina and the irony there

the birds in general (one of my thoughts early on in the film when one of the characters was attempting to escape, I thought, 'follow the birds'...)

selfish vs selfless vs ...

identity / the strange one / otherness