Few directors have undergone a more drastic shift in perception than M. Night Shyamalan, who went from being seen as a wunderkind with his breakthrough directorial effort, the remarkable The Sixth Sense, as well as supremely ambitious films like Unbreakable and Signs, both of which have a lot of merit in spite of some clear shortcomings. Then he went through a period of critically-reviled films, with many films he made towards the middle of the 2000s being seen as enormous failures, even with some very vocal devotees that promoted them as unintentional cult classics. Then, he suddenly became respectable again about a decade ago, with films like The Visit and Split being a return to form. He has managed to leverage this recent burst of acclaim to make some very ambitious films that feel like he is returning to his roots. It also afforded him the opportunity to give a voice to other directors, as we can see in the example of The Watchers, which is written and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, who happens to be his daughter. I have never felt too passionate about the discourse surrounding nepotism, since the simple fact remains that, while some people do get a boost from having familial connections within the industry, it is also entirely possible that they’re genuinely talented enough to warrant a place in the culture (and usually, those who are less gifted naturally tend to fall by the wayside, since the industry tends to be vicious to anyone not meeting their standards), so any criticism I have for this film – and there is an abundance – has nothing to do with any feeling of disdain for a director who only got this opportunity due to her father’s connections. Instead, we find that The Watchers is quite a middling effort, a well-crafted horror film but one that is about as original as it is daring, neither of which necessarily being words we would use to describe it. Instead, it’s a run-of-the-mill work that is neither unique nor particularly compelling, and which ultimately falls victim to some very severe flaw that could have easily been overcome with further work and more attention to detail, neither of which factors in this film, leading to one of the more underwhelming horror debuts of recent years.

Few subjects fit horror better than that of trauma, to the point where it’s become something of a running joke within the community to see just how many supposedly original and bespoke works ultimately reveal themselves to be about grief in some form or another. The Watchers is about a young woman who ventures into the forest, getting lost after her car breaks down and finding refuge with a trio of outcasts who hide in a makeshift shelter, where they are watched nightly by some unseen entities that use them as their entertainment – and eventually, our protagonist’s reasons for being drawn into this nightmarish landscape becomes clear when her past is revealed. This film is not an exception to the trend of making a film driven by trauma -, it’s one of the most blatant examples of this practice since just about everything we find throughout this film relates to the concept of trauma, which is beyond obvious by this point, and frankly quite boring. It’s not so much that it’s taking a hackneyed trope and exploiting it to the full extent of its capabilities, but doing so in a way that never feels like even an iota of effort was put into the process. Instead, we gradually find that Shyamalan is more focused on trying to capture a very specific tone, which is not entirely unexpected, but is somewhat disconcerting when it’s clear that it was done without much thought. The director seemed to think it was sufficient to make a film in which every avenue leads to it being a deep allegory for traumatic events – and the most ludicrous part is that she genuinely thought this would be a surprising revelation, rather than the most obvious result, to the point where calling it a twist would be massively generous and even wildly inappropriate, considering how it would be odd to find a single viewer surprised by this supposed deep and daring revelation. Nothing ever really works in this film, and its tendency to go for the low-hanging fruit would be bad enough, but it adds insult to injury by being made by someone completely oblivious and instead seemed to genuinely think what she was doing was original and daring, despite its very obvious subject matter and thematic content.

In addition to the themes this film explored feeling incredibly shallow at the best of times, The Watchers is simply not that interesting of a film. It would be understandable to make a film that explores very obvious ideas, as long as it is done in a way that is interesting and subversive. Instead, we discover that Shyamalan is hopelessly ill-equipped to handle the nuances that would come with a more interesting version of this story, and instead, she relies on the spectacle to distract from the painfully obvious narrative. It’s a well-made film, but only because she uses a very simple aesthetic, which is heightened to the point where it becomes the only memorable aspect, which is rarely ideal for this genre. The film is striving to be a more atmospheric experience, which would make sense had there been a stronger story to set the tone. Instead, it uses very muted colours to imply the bleakness of the story, showing how these characters live in a mostly colourless world, one in which their trauma has forced them to become cynical and harsh. Once again, this is already giving too much credit to a modestly interesting film, rather than one that ever feels like it’s doing anything of value. Nothing about The Watchers feels all that original – everything seems like a rehashing of existing work, just without the intelligence or craftsmanship that went into those far more captivating films. Shyamalan borrows liberally from numerous sources and doesn’t offer much in return, other than supposedly trying to pay tribute without actually being the kind of film that anyone would feel honoured to be made in their legacy. The film does try to be unique, but it rarely feels like anything more than 100 minutes of a director cobbling together the best components of much better films, hoping that it would become effective in the process (ironically, one of the few works of horror immune to Shyamalan’s borrowing is Frankenstein, a work all about a grotesque being created from a variety of elements), but ultimately failing to do anything particularly notable or even entertaining, with the austere tone and genuine lack of terror being one of the most unpleasant aspects of a film weighed down by its dullness.

You would at least hope that the actors in The Watchers would be able to make this film worth our time, especially since it promotes itself as being quite character-driven. Dakota Fanning is cast in the lead, and while she is a gifted actor capable of going to incredible depths, this film completely wastes her, and she feels adrift in a story that even she finds excruciatingly boring, as reflected in her lacklustre performance that feels like she was merely going through the motions, especially since it was clear there was nothing particularly daring about the performance as a whole. Every character in this film has potential, but they all suffer the same fate – the actors do their best and put in as much effort as they can, but ultimately never manage to work through the uninspired and scattered storyline, which offers them nothing even vaguely memorable. Olwen Fouéré in particular is the most disadvantaged, since despite having technically the most interesting character (an older woman weathered to cynicism over time as a result of living in a perpetual state of fear), she is also given the most obvious elements, and never quite manages to add much depth to the part. The problem is that Shyamalan was intending to make a deeper, more character-driven film, without actually realizing that would entail developing them all to be more than just standard, thinly-drawn archetypes usually found within horror films. Georgina Campbell and Oliver Finnegan are given very little room to grow, and the supporting parts never really feel like they’re making any significant impression, which only makes this a duller and more uninspired experience, and one that grows to be quite frustrating in its outright lack of effort in every area that needed it the most. It’s rarely a positive sign when the best part of your film is an acknowledgement that it showcased wider local talents rather than relying on major stars or recognizable actors.

Criticizing a directorial debut is never ideal, especially when it comes to scenarios where scrounging around for scraps of merit is the best we can do to provide some positive feedback. However, Shyamalan is clearly out of her depth here, and despite being a formally very good film (based on the resources available to her), with a visual style that is perhaps the only well-produced aspect, The Watchers is about as lacklustre as it could get, which is an unfortunate realization considering how much potential it could have had in the right hands. There’s an argument to be made that she set out to make the most conventional horror film possible solely to have a directorial credit to her name and that she will eventually grow into a more daring artist as time progresses. This is overly generous, and while we can wish her well, absolutely nothing about this film implies that she should be given the benefit of the doubt, especially in a cinematic landscape where audacity is usually expected from directorial debuts. When ambition is seen as strong artistic currency, it’s almost bewildering to find something that foregoes any sense of effort and simply defaults to being profoundly conventional in a way that isn’t even reliable, but rather woefully boring and frustrating. It’s not a particularly scary film, with every moment of terror being seen from a distance, and the actual narrative depth is virtually non-existent, essentially being one obvious revelation after another, culminating in a violent conclusion that’s most notable reaction is the feeling of relief that the film is over. It’s difficult to feel much passion for this film or its director, who deserves credit for the endeavour, but needs to work on both her narrative and stylistic skills, in the hopes that her next feature will be more polished and daring – she deserves the chance, but with such a disappointing debut, she has a lot to prove going forward, or else she will slowly peter out and become someone whose intentions were admirable, but not enough to salvage a promising story.