Critics reviews

Shyamalan shares with her father a knack for crafting atmosphere; the sound design, in particular, is creepily oppressive, all cracking inhuman bones and scratching unseen claws. But she also demonstrates the Shyamalan family trait of leaning on inelegant chunks of exposition and blunt weapon third-act plot ambushes.

[T]he filmmaker shares dear old dad’s own storytelling crutch of voluble overstatement. Pacing is a conspicuous problem and the rushed third act threatens to crumble as The Watchers becomes overloaded with revelations and mythology that strain a foundation barely braced to hold their weight.

“The Watchers” is based on a novel by A.M. Shine... and works best when it fully exploits the wonders of sound design to build a feeling of Dolby-enhanced dread... But as stifling as the atmosphere tries to be, it’s just not gripping enough that plot holes will go unnoticed...

By the point “The Watchers” has pivoted to its pull-the-rug endgame (clearly a family thing with the Shyamalans), the level of exposition and explanation... has thoroughly overwhelmed any authentic drama or peril. Between the clunky narrative and the Interesting Shots, you feel defeated by both show and tell.

When you’re the child of a famous filmmaker, comparisons are inevitable, and The Watchers does nothing to create distance between its director and the auteurist signatures of her parent — there’s a genuinely effective genre premise, and there’s a final-act twist, and there are some suspenseful set pieces and camera movements in between.

Fanning brings her A-game and there’s enough mystery about the monsters in the woods to string audiences along until the satisfyingly weird finish. As mid-list horror goes, perfectly fine.

Any of the suspense or dread the film might have built up... turns to mush when the horror turns hokey and another M Night movie is recalled, to tell which would be a spoiler but it is … not a compliment. The worst thing about the back half is that things aren’t just stupid but they’re also boring, the deadliest sin in this genre.

The Watchers, sadly, is less disturbing than dull, less harrowing than hackneyed, right down to a closing shot... As it crawled toward the finish line, all I could think was, “Try not to die.”

The material designed to serve as the The Watchers‘ grounding force – a canned childhood trauma for Mina – feels as contrived and ham-fisted as any of its mythology, with Fanning delivering most of her lines in a narcotized hush.

Shyamalan is far more interested in exploring the woods than she is in fleshing out any of her characters..., but her film is well-served by playing to its strengths, and “The Watchers” is at its most grippingly tense whenever Mina goes looking for trouble.

Maybe the scant character development here would be enough if Mina were played by someone a bit more invested, but Dakota Fanning’s performance is nearly apathetic... The rest of the film doesn’t give much, either, despite being pretty competently made.

The Watchers isn’t terrible: Shyamalan’s direction is legible, and the whole thing makes sense on a thematic level. (Maybe a little too much sense, actually.) But it lacks the creativity and confidence to go beyond “competent” and into “inspired”—probably because this one is just for practice.