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Review – The Watched (2024) (spoiler free)


In Ishana Night Shyamalan’s feature directorial debut, M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter proves that she has a natural talent on her own without any namesake, creating mystifying lands and lore in the horror The Watched. Whilst the film equips an expansive story filled with startling truths and shocking details, the continuous barrage of going-ons and happenings force the sincere spookiness of it all to drown amongst the chaos. This new gothic horror is certainly worthwhile, but the muddled dynamic dampens the film’s full potential. 

Mina (Dakota Fanning) lives somewhat of a no-thrills life, working in a pet shop in Ireland where she wallows and grieves in the loneliness of her existence. Tasked with transporting an exotic parrot to a zoo in Belfast, she soon finds herself stranded in a dark and eerie forest. Looking for a way out, Mina’s Search for rescue is cut short as she becomes trapped in a bunker where the night creatures crawl above. 

The Watched’s premise originates from a novel of the same name by A.M. Shine, who does a masterly job of intertwining Irish folklore into a twisted, ghastly horror novel. Similar sentiments apply to Shyamalan’s adaption, with the first act conjuring suspense unlike no other, crafting the same intrigue that the novel does towards the lore and mysticality regarding the central creatures. Keeping in mind these creatures, the film’s design aesthetics are also deserving of a hat tip, with their more minimalist appearance delivering ample tension at the mere thought of them. Once again, even further praise is awarded to the atmosphere of the forest and its pastures of green-tinged terror. And yet, The Watched still drastically wavers at the halfway mark. 

With all of its twists and turns, warped fantastical displays and heightened intensity, The Watched suffers from its abundance of thematics and exhibitions. The saying, sometimes more is less, is certainly a phrase the film could have benefited from, with the overall diegesis becoming overwhelmed and lacking focus on any of its countless elements. Leading on from the superfluous narrative is yet another crux in the faults of The Watched. Whilst Fanning, along with co-stars Georgia Campbell, Olwen Fouéré, and Oliver Finnegan, deliver strong performances, the dialogue they had to work with was bleak and overloaded with unnecessary, excess exposition to the point of it being uninformative and simply a negative expression into how it was presumed the audience could not gather the intel on their own. 

The premise of Shyamalan’s vision is worthy of compliment, with the folkloric, fantasy element complimenting the intriguing aesthetics of the setting, but the rambunctious nature of the film’s overdone plot simply hid a film that had the potential to be an excellent, curious tidbit into the world of fantasy horror.

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Review – Barbarian: Airbnb gone wrong

When Tess (Georgina Campbell) arrives at her Airbnb on the sketchy side of town, the last thing she expects is for someone to be already staying there. With no other options available she decides to accept the offer and stay the night. Little does she no, the house holds a dark secret.

2022 has been the polar opposite of a sleepy year for the horror genre. We started off strong with the latest Scream, illuminated springtime with X, and Men, followed by summer scorchers including Nope and Speak No Evil. At the cusp of autumn and winter, where festive romcoms parade the halls, Smile, Bodies Bodies Bodies, and Terrifier 2 took the bull by the horns and kept gory delights at the forefront of mainstream releases. However, no other film has quite grasped such a collective attention, bared an incredible amount of adoration, and shown modern horror a more nerve-shaking nightmare than Barbarian

Barbarian (2022), Trailer 1 | Flicks

Barbarian comes from the mind of  Zach Cregger, mainly known for his acting career, however, it is certain that his dynamic style will be furnishing future horror hits as Barbarian has defied records and grossed over nine times its budget. 

To quote an interesting comment made during the press release of Don’t Worry Darling, Barbarian ‘feels like a movie’, an actual movie… This may seem like a rather ambiguous claim, but it is indeed very true when it comes to Cregger’s take on the increasingly popular real-estate horror genre. Every antic has so much gravitas holding it up, where complete immersion is inevitable, you will genuinely feel overwhelmed by the utter madness on screen. 

Barbarian might be the scariest film you see this year | SYFY WIRE

The home has been an exploited topic in horror for a while now, with invasion exploits dominating the market, yet these niche-for-now rental horrors that thrive on the lack of the of ‘home’ and more on the unfamiliarity and alienation of entering into someone else’s ‘home’ movies are slowly redefining the topic of home invasions. Dave Franco’s The Rental (2020), Brandon Christensen’s Superhost (2021) and now Barbarian have formed somewhat of an unholy trinity of Airbnb terrors. 

Barbarian Gets All-New Trailer Embracing the Comedy of the Horror Adventure

The insidious nature at which Cregger handles Barbaran’s subject matter is a boastful testament to the slow churners of classic cinema akin to Alfred Hitchcock’s plot dynamics, Terence Fisher’s depictions of good vs evil, and Mario Bava’s embellishment of visual tenaciousness. The film understands the immediate cautious view that audiences will latch onto from the very first scene. Straight away Tess is placed in a vulnerable situation, with the unkept neighbourhood and dimly lit street highlighting the emptiness and isolating reality. After struggling to enter her rented accommodation she is met by an -overly- charming man who insists on her entering the property for her own ‘safety’ to settle the double booked circumstance. Whilst Skarsgård is an established actor with many credits, it is nearly impossible to fully detach our perception of his role as Pennywise from the IT (2017) reboot. His character, Keith, may seem like a nice guy, but so are most deceptively cruel villains. And through his prior attachment to one of cinema’s most popular antagonists, his performance as Keith sets alarm bells ringing straight away. 

Barbarian horror film is a renter's worst nightmare - Geeky Gadgets

Cregger took inspiration from the book The Gift of Fear (1997) which chronicles the notion of intuition and how we internalise red flags to make judgements that unknowingly save our lives everyday. Keith is the obstacle, the threat; after all he is the person instigating Tess’s entry into an unfamiliar habitat. And Tess replicates us. Every step she takes into the danger, we are begrudgingly tiptoeing behind her, shouting at the screen for her to get back in her car and watching the events unfold between peeking fingers. 

Whatever twist, shakeup, or 180 you are expecting, abandon it. With Barbarian nothing is as it seems.

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