The Watchers

The Watchers written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan's daughter Ishana Shyamalan and starring Dakota Fanning is now playing in theaters. This new thriller takes place almost entirely in a western Ireland forest where four unlikely companions find themselves trapped in a house and watched by mysterious beings. 

There were some things that I liked about this movie and also some things that I did not. First off, I felt that the movie took too long to get going. Early on I found the film to be a little boring and even caught myself nodding off once or twice. The story does pick up towards the middle, so you just need to be patient. The acting in the movie was overall pretty good, except for the performance by Oliver Finnegan who played one of the four strangers. Everyone else, especially Dakota Fanning, did a good enough job to overshadow his poor acting but it was still noticed by me and still took me a little bit out of the story when he was on screen. The story pulled from local folklore which added to the overall theme of the movie and I felt made it very cool. Folklore has always been something that has fascinated me and I felt that Shyamalan did a great job of incorporating it into her story.

Overall, this is a solid thriller film and I recommend checking it out. This is definitely one of those movies where I was not sure how I felt about it right after it ended, but the more I think about it, the more I like it.