A story about a person being lost in the woods is a horror tale as old as time. The Watchers, based on the 2022 A.M Shine novel, follows the lost-in-the-woods formula to tell a story filled with horror, isolation, mystery and fear.

Set in Ireland, Mina (Dakota Fanning) is delivering a parakeet to a client when she drives through a forest when her car mysteriously dies. After Mina leaves the vehicle to find help, she decides to turn around and back to the car only to see it has vanished. Trapped in the woods with just her parakeet, she hears something in the distance as the sun starts to set. Madeline (Olwen Fouere) appears out of nowhere and takes Mina to a concrete fortress known as the Coop where she meets Ciara (Georgina Campbell) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan).

A scared and confused Mina learns what’s happening as Madeleine explains the rules. They’re stuck in the forest with creatures that just want to watch them. They won’t harm them if they follow the rules. The isolation and the woods themselves have taken a toll on their minds.

Mina is a rule breaker and decides she wants to find a way out. Her rule breaking put her and the group in more danger. As things start to fall apart around them, Mina and the others start working to find a way out of the forest.

Ishana Night Shyamalan’s directing is decent for her first theatrical film. There are some nice sequences, like the film’s opening, that are terrifying. Always keeping the creatures in the shadows was an interesting choice that may have stopped her from showing her talent as a director.

The main issue with the film is the screenplay. Other than Mina, none of the characters have a backstory other than a few lines of exposition. It’s hard for audiences to care if these characters live or die. Mina as the main character isn’t likeable enough to want to see her as the final girl and not troubled enough to cheer for her conquering her demons.

With a 90-minute runtime, there isn’t enough to care about other than the mystery surrounding the forest. Once audiences figured that out, the film slowly strolls towards an inevitable twist that’s not surprising, and then the film is over.

The Watchers is an interesting gumbo of horror movie tropes that should be better than it is. It’s a film that could’ve been a limited series to dive deeper into the characters in the Coop, the lore of the forest, and the different ways people try to escape. Hopefully Ishana Night Shyamalan gets another shot to show what she can do.

Grade: C