Halloween Horror
Is it Halloween already? Seems like only a year ago. For 2024’s Book Versus Film, we’re tackling a recently published debut novel and an even more recently released film adaptation.
A freaky forest holds a scary secret on the Emerald Isle, so follow me and keep your eyes peeled for The Watchers. Don’t go wandering off now…
The Book
There’s a song that begins, “If you go down to the woods today / You’re sure of a big surprise…” I’ve always found that slightly disturbing, but in the hands of Irish author A. M. Shine the big surprise in the woods is downright terrifying.
I’ll keep this as spoiler-free as possible, but I’m warning you now: it ain’t no teddy bears’ picnic.
The Story
Reclusive artist Mina, 33, lives alone in Galway on Ireland’s west coast. To help cover the rent she agrees to transport a rare parrot to Connemara, but her car and mobile phone break down on the outskirts of a mysterious forest. It’s December, and after waiting all night for another car to go by, she decides to walk to her destination.
But the forest is too big and too dark to find a way through, and there’s something nasty waiting for the sun to go down. Luckily Mina finds a building just as it sets, and takes shelter with its three occupants. And then she discovers how long they have been trapped in the ‘coop’, prisoners of creatures known as the Watchers…
The Characters
The CharactersMina doesn’t enter that forest with just a parrot in a cage, she’s also carrying unresolved family issues with estranged sister Jennifer, and grieving for her mum who died less than a year ago. Though she prefers her own company, Mina is adept at studying other people thanks to her portrait sketching. Being a skilful card player means she knows when someone is deceiving her too; just as well, for one of her fellow captives is being less than honest with everyone.
Madeline is the coop’s longest ‘resident’, having been there for two years and three months. Their survival-skill expert and unelected leader, in the outside world she’d be the kind of boss that gave HR nightmares, but in the forest she’s the reason everyone else is still alive. Madeline treats everybody with disdain (even the parrot doesn’t like her!) but as Mina finds out the night they’re both locked out of the coop, she is capable of surprising compassion. They may all dislike her, but everybody would be dead without her.
Daniel is 19, a runaway from an abusive home where his father instilled into him the belief he was a useless burden. Unfortunately, the place he ran to was the forest, and Madeline has continued where Dad left off. Danny just wants to fit in, to be wanted and feel useful, and the only person he can turn to is the coop’s final occupant. But she has her own problems…
Ciara arrived at the coop with her husband John, but three days before Mina turned up, he tried to find a way out – and hasn’t been seen since. At 26 she’s too young to be a widow, but trying to stay positive whilst giving Daniel emotional support means Ciara’s slowly being buried by more than the blankets she constantly hides beneath. In such a fragile state, how will she cope the night she hears her husband asking Ciara to open the door…?
The Watchers In The Woods
By keeping the characters to a minimum, Shine has more time to explore their motivations, create and break loyalties, and set them at loggerheads with one another.
We also briefly meet the architect of the coop – Professor David Kilmartin – who explains the why and how of their home/prison, then sets in motion not only their escape but also an almighty twist. But his appearance is brief, around seven pages, so if there is a fifth character here it is the forest itself.
From the first page, Shine guides us through the shadows, the eternal coldness, the myriad roots, creating a landscape so vivid you’ll feel the claustrophobia. We’re told the forest has existed for centuries, omitted from every map to deter the curious. It is a land where electrical equipment breaks down. The only thing more unsettling are those that call it home.
For almost the entire book the creatures are an unseen threat, occasionally heard but rarely glimpsed. And when we do see them, we don’t really – because these ancient beings are shapeshifters. Shine has taken the mythology of fairies as a starting point (in particular, the changeling) and crafted something genuinely fearful. In one of the book’s many unnerving passages, as Madeline tells Mina about the first time she saw the Watchers, she reveals how they all looked exactly like her.
The author knew that keeping his antagonists in the background would be key to the novel’s success. We fear more that which we don’t know, don’t understand, don’t see. Throw in a set of “rules” to follow – be inside the coop before the light comes on, etc – and frankly, we’re sold. Such decrees are frequently a defining trait of great horror monsters – vampires and sunlight, werewolves and moonlight, Mogwai and midnight – and the fun is in learning them, then waiting for them to be broken.
What’s also enjoyable is having the rug pulled from under us, or in this case, the forest. Just when we think we’ll be there until the end, the story unexpectedly relocates to the city – with still almost a quarter of the book to go. So used are we to the coop’s daily regimen that the return to Galway knocks us off-kilter as much as our protagonists. Seeing Mina struggle to readjust – for so accustomed is she to the coop’s hard floor that cushions are now too soft – perfectly captures that feeling of not belonging. And then comes the twist…
Which I’m not going to reveal. To say more would rob you of one of the best surprises I have ever read, and you’ll be hard pressed to put the book down until the last page after it. The ending is both a satisfying conclusion and an opportunity for a sequel (which has just been published), and culminates on possibly the best final line since William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist. Once you’ve finished, you’ll want to and start it again.
Release & Reception
Published in hardback on 14th October 2021, A. M. Shine’s novel was praised for its superb concept and sublime writing. The author interweaves his passion for history and superstition into a Gothic classic that pays dues to Edgar Allan Poe (one of Shine’s influences) and our obsession with reality television. By turns heart-racing (the escape from the forest leaves you breathless) and heartbreaking (a tragic sacrifice hits hard), with some genuinely nerve-shredding moments, The Watchers was always destined to attract Hollywood’s attention.
The Film
In February 2023, New Line Cinema announced it had outbid rival studios for the film adaptation of The Watchers, being written and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, and produced by her father, among others. The plan was to release it in June 2024, following principal photography scheduled for that summer. And then, with the cameras already rolling, the actors’ strike hit.
Fortunately, as an independent production (allegedly bankrolled by Manoj Night Shyamalan), an interim agreement with SAG-AFTRA allowed filming to continue. Coming after movies like The Hallow and The Hole in the Ground, you’d be forgiven for thinking a country that’s smaller than Stephen King’s beloved Maine has a worrying monopoly on spooky forests, and thanks to cinematographer Eli Arenson, the one we get here is something else. Even the Brothers Grimm would take the long way round.
The Cast
As with the book the call sheet is small, but chock-full of talent. Dakota Fanning takes on Mina, now American, and her twin sister Lucy (changed from Jennifer in a nod to one of Ireland’s other great Gothic writers, Bram Stoker). Georgina Campbell and Oliver Finnegan play Caira and Daniel, and Galway-born Olwen Fouéré is Madeline. They are all excellent, with Fanning often carrying the film by herself, and Fouéré casting a spell whenever she’s on screen.
The estranged sisters becoming identical twins touches on themes of identity and imitation, easier to expand upon in a visual format. Mina now assumes a disguise before heading to the pub; and the scene, mentioned earlier, where Ciara’s husband begs to be let into the coop before the Watchers arrive, leaves little doubt it’s a doppelganger when he fails to answer a question from his wife (the book cannily leaves this unconfirmed). We may not always be sure who other people are, but there’s no point denying our own identities; and it’s only when Mina deals with her messy past – blaming herself for her mother’s death, which now happened 15 years ago – that she can escape the prison she’s been in long before entering the forest.
Finding A New Trail
Early in, we’re presented with news stories about deforestation and our ecological impact on the planet: humanity’s dirty footprint treading where it is not welcome. This time, however, it isn’t the indigenous species who suffer. Rather than us emerging with a jam-jar of displaced bugs to gawp over (or, say, a giant ape to ship to New York) we’re the ones who end up on display. Mess with nature at your peril, especially when its inhabitants have a grudge against you that’s older than the trees.
The Watchers’ backstory has also been embellished, and whilst it may seem quite minor, the change is possibly the most significant. As with the book, at some point long ago humanity drove the fairies underground, but now it transpires we had a race of children with them first – called halflings – who can walk in daylight. By making our two species compatible enough that we could procreate, Ishana renders humanity’s betrayal of the fairies even crueller, and their hatred of us more justified. This act of aggression echoes our own racist history, and though Mina and the others aren’t guilty of the sins of our past, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for the Watchers. When one of them literally gets their wings back, it’s the film’s biggest feel-good moment.
Ishana’s adaptation is extremely faithful, managing that rare feat of looking exactly like I imagined it when I first read the novel. Some of her changes suit the visual medium (the forest is now peppered with “point of no return” signs; and the coop, reduced to a single room, resembles a huge old TV set), and there are additional scenes to keep things moving (Mina descends into a burrow).
One tweak even explains the only question I had after finishing the book: If people have enough time to wander into the forest and find the coop, how come they never find a way out? (Because the forest plays hallucinatory tricks on them). Not every change works, and my main gripe here comes at the end. Anyone who’s read the book will know there’s a final sting that the film completely ignores. Why I don’t know, as it wouldn’t strain the budget, and gives the studios that holiest of grails: franchise potential.
Release & Reception
The Watchers was released theatrically in the US and UK on 7th June 2024, with some smaller territories getting it the day before. A last-minute decision saw the title changed to The Watched in the UK and Ireland. Irrespective of the name, unfortunately it chose the same weekend to open as Bad Boys: Ride or Die. Horror, usually the most bankable of genres, had already struggled in 2024, and this stood little chance against a resurgent Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.
Many reviews were hardly glowing either, although both Empire and Total Film were complimentary. However, some detractors felt its first-time director showed promise. What was interesting, though, was entertainment analytics company RelishMix reporting a lot of negative chatter from people who hadn’t seen the film but were put off by M. Night Shyamalan’s involvement. In hindsight, perhaps they should have opened after Manoj’s Trap managed respectable box-office whilst Deadpool and Wolverine were hoovering up worldwide.
Mention of Shyamalan Snr does bring me to the issue of nepotism, which Ishana was asked about a lot during press for The Watchers. Whether this affected the box-office is uncertain, but anyone familiar with the critically acclaimed Apple TV+ series Servant will know she directed, wrote or co-wrote multiple episodes, including season finales. That was Manoj’s show too, but he clearly believed his daughter could deliver – and more to the point, so did Apple. After seeing her debut feature, I’m inclined to agree. Hers is a career that’s definitely worth watching.
And The Winner Is …
The book brilliantly shows people under duress slowly unravelling. At times, it seems like the titular creatures are just an excuse to keep our protagonists in the coop, but we’re never shortchanged by their fleeting appearances. With its mixture of history, folklore, false endings and unexpected twists, A. M. Shine has written a modern literary horror classic.
The film clearly understands what makes the book work, and deserves praise for how it visualises the world of The Watchers. Ishana Night Shyamalan reveals new facets whilst giving us a more satisfying adaptation than many critics would have you believe. Hopefully, in time, this film will find its audience.
But as I reread the book in preparation for this, and saw how skilfully the author creates his characters and hides his biggest surprise in plain sight, I realised there could be only one outcome: the book is the winner.
What Do You Think?
BIO: Nick Jackson was born near ancient woodland in Cumbria. The spooky things that live there threw a party when he left. He has since made Leeds his home, where he writes supernatural short stories that occasionally crop up in anthologies, and Book Versus Film comparisons for Lucy.
