The Watchers

With the release of the movie upon us, it seemed like a good time to finally review The Watchers [A. M Shine]. Never say I'm not one for cashing in. 

I had this on my TBR a while but didn't give it much thought. It was a cheap one, bought on sale and almost instantly forgotten. It wasn't until I saw the movie trailer that I recalled what it was about, and the fact it starred Amanda Siegfried caught my attention. I hadn't thought it was that famous.

It actually doesn't star Amanda Siegfried, it stars Dakota Fanning (they look very similar in a dark shot, ok?) but by that point I was interested enough to pick it up.

The Watchers is the story of a young woman who, on a drive through Ireland, breaks down near some remote woods. She stumbles across a small building in a clearing, where three others 'live'. They turn out to be prisoners of mysterious creatures who watch their every move through a large glass panel every night. If they fall asleep, the watchers attack the glass. If they are still in the woods at dusk, they are killed. And with no resources except what they can hunt or gather during the few hours of daylight they also need for sleeping, they are starving and sickening. 

The problem is that this doesn't know what it wants to be, so tries to do it all. It throws in elements of classic body-snatcher sci-fi, with fae folk mythology, ley lines, capitalist criticism, and final girl stuff. I even detected a bit of Moffat-era Doctor Who. It over-complicates things to the point that, despite the building only having two rooms, I lost track of what was happening. Strong, sympathetic characters are built up in the first half, and then spend the remainder of the book either squabbling, betraying each other, or swearing undying devotion. I'm still bewildered at some of the character choices, to be quite honest. 

That's not to say it doesn't have it's moments. It's extremely readable in the first half, and that tension has enough momentum that it's still there even when the author lifts his foot from the pedal. The setting is bleak and memorable, and the situation is fairly unique as horror goes. There's a parrot along for the ride, which is so out of place that it works really well. 

If the author had limited their ambition a little, this could have been solid. This isn't the kind've horror that needs big stakes and answers - and by adding them in the final third, it felt like a whole separate story tacked onto the end. The final scene slips into outright parody. 

Not to go all zoomer for a minute, but this was aggressively mid. It was better than a Kindle Unlimited-level horror, but it definitely hasn't earned a movie - except by virtue of being quite cheap to make.  

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