The Watcher in the Woods
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Movie Reviews of The Watcher in the Woods
Movie Review: Good family horror movie until it all falls apart at the end
Summary: 4 Stars
This movie is really suspenseful and intriguing until like so many movies of the genre it falls apart in the last twenty minutes or so. Even though it is a Disney film it is not really suitable for real young kids but is a perfect choice for those ten and up. There are some fairly chilling sequences and a few scenes that may make the viewer jump but it is pretty much family friendly fare for older kids and grown ups. The ending which brings a science fiction element into what had previously been a well made haunted house movie is quite jarring and almost but not quite ruins this otherwise well made film.Movie Review: Great beginner scary movie
Summary: 4 Stars
I watched this movie for the first time with my 8-year-old. We loved it. It has just enough mood music and wind to make it seem scary, but it has a happy ending. If your child has outgrown "Charlie Brown" Halloween and are looking for the next step in Halloween entertainment, try this.Movie Review: Watcher in the Woods
Summary: 4 Stars
It is great to re-live the movie that terrified me as a child :) It's not quite as scary as I remember, but brings back fun memories.Movie Review: Watched Yes. Enjoyed? Well...
Summary: 3 Stars
[...]
You start out with a ghost story and you end up with "What the f"k?" I was okay with about an hour and ten minutes of this movie. It was the last ten minutes that i cant accept.
Basic setup, a family moves into an old house or manor, whatever youd like to call the large thing. The two daughters begin to tap into the spirits around the place. The oldest daughter seeing images of the girl who was lost long ago while the younger daughter gets used as a channeling board for the spirits.
A good mystery is developed, only to fall apart in the end. I felt mind raped straight through my ear. I kept coming up with possibilities for what it might be and what it was i never would have guessed, mainly because i wasnt pitching from the parking lot. The idea the story ended with wasnt even on the movies playing field.
The directors commentary offered no insight into this. All he did was tell how a shot was done, tell you what was going on in a scene (which you could tell by WATCHING the damn thing!), or bitch about his ending being better than the one they went with. The dvd i had had "two" alternate endings on it but they were pretty much the same thing. ###And for some reason the actress they had playing the grown up little girl looked like a man in a wig???###
I realized later that this movie was based off of a book, which i suppose lets the director off the hook for not telling me why the ending of the movie was so different. Perhaps the book did a better job at transitioning the reader from one aspect of the story to the next because this movie just throws it at you and expects you to catch it, even if you dont have any hands.
This entire paragraph is a ### so you might wanna skip it. The idea behind Karens dissapearance is that these young people, playing what i assumed was a prank because they were initiating her into their group, was actually some kind of witchcraft...somehow. The youngest girl comes in at the end, possesed by The Watcher. Turns out Karen was sucked into an alternate dimension and switched places with this Watcher, whatever it is. Oh wait, its some kind of alien! The deleted endings show this creature which is quite menacing. Its just the idea of this character, after expecting a ghost story and getting an alien, that i have a problem with. The alternate endings also try to explain what happened to Karen, adding in things about negative energies and whatnot which really only make the idea more retarded. Explaining the specifics breifly (as the possessed little girl does) was the best route. I thought perhaps whoever wrote the book had an episode of Star Trek on in the background when writing this ending and decided that was a cool idea to go with.###
For the most part i have no problem referring this movie. Just know that the payoff in the end leaves quite a bit to be desired. Oh and some of the acting is horrible. I swear the one guy had to be drunk the whole time they were shooting this movie!
Movie Review: "Hammer Films" Lite for a Younger Audience
Summary: 3 Stars
Screenwriter Brian Clemens was responsible for much of what made the TV series "The Avengers" great, and his touch shows here.
It's too bad that nobody could decide precisely how to end this film, because up to there it's a very nice atmospheric suspense/mild horror film, very much in the grand Hammer tradition. Quite a departure for Disney at the time.
Lynn Holly Johnson (who made about three films, playing an ice skater in two of them - wow what a stretch) is fine, and the rest of the cast are more than adequate, particularly the great Bette Davis as a Scary Old Lady With A Secret.*
Well worth while, though none of the alternate endings actually work perfectly; the book's ending was a little tricky to translate to visuals, apparently.
*One touch i greatly appreciated when first i saw the film was that, for the flashback, they didn't try to find an 18-year-old who looked like the young Bette [or use make-up to make a young actress look like her], but rather they seem to have found someone who, years later might well look like Davis in her later years. A subtle distinction, but nicely done, and not nearly so takes-you-out-of-the-moment as going "Wow - that girl looks just like Davis did in 'Petrified Forest'!"