The Watched: A promising but plodding debut from M Night Shyamalan’s daughter

There’s a sense of déjà vu to The Watched – half comforting, if also enervating – which comes from having the name Shyamalan attached. The Sixth Sense auteur produced this, and his daughter Ishana makes her writing-directing debut, fashioning the kind of portentous horror mystery that’s been M Night’s bread and butter for years.

It boasts a cabin in the woods (like her dad’s Knock at the Cabin) and spindly ghouls rampaging among the trees (like The Village). But the story isn’t an invention by either of them – it’s derived from a 2021 Irish horror novel called The Watchers, by AM Shine.

Pet shop employee Mina (Dakota Fanning, increasingly agog) is delivering a parrot from Galway to Belfast when her car breaks down: when she turns around, it’s gone, leaving her at the mercy of scuttling somethings, in an unending forest that’s not on any maps. She finds three strangers (Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouéré, Oliver Finnegan) holed up in a cabin with curious design features: one whole wall is a one-way mirror, meaning they can be watched all night by whatever’s outside.

By day, when the creatures burrow underground, this quartet are free to explore, but can never make it out of the woods before sunset. Mina’s companions have been stuck there for months – possibly years – but don’t seem particularly stressed about the fact; Ciara (Barbarian’s Georgina Campbell) announces matter-of-factly that her husband has been missing for six days.

The tone is earnestly odd, taking folklore dead seriously. We’re captive to rules laid down by Fouéré’s witchily intense Madeleine, who has been there the longest: never open the door at night, never turn your back to the mirror. But the script’s payoffs are way too feeble to justify our growing impatience, and the pacing’s a trudge.

Shyamalan fille does show promise: as handsomely shot as her father’s best work, this doesn’t want for moments of creepy craft. The fairy-folk, or whatever they are, have reptilian skin and gnarled, twisted bodies that unfurl to double human height, as if they’re half poplar: we don’t see much of them, but they make an impact.

As we cotton on to the Body Snatchers-esque concept, glimmers of ideas are dangled (Mina has an estranged twin) which make you wonder if something truly ingenious is underfoot. It’s not, unfortunately – and the final twists, bogged down by explaining themselves to death, land with a wet slap.

In cinemas from Friday June 7