★ 7 / 10
_**This ain’t no conventional Disney flick; it’s genuinely
Wuchak
_**This ain’t no conventional Disney flick; it’s genuinely eerie**_ An American family moves into an English country manor for the summer while the mysterious…
_**This ain’t no conventional Disney flick; it’s genuinely eerie**_
An American family moves into an English country manor for the summer while the mysterious owner, Mrs. Aylwood (Bette Davis), lives in the guest house. The teen daughter, Jan (Lynn-Holly Johnson), discerns something weird is going on, which is linked to Mrs. Aylwood's missing daughter, Karen (Katharine Levy), from decades earlier. Jan investigates the mystery with the aid of a neighbor (Benedict Taylor) and her younger sister (Kyle Richards). Carroll Baker & David McCallum play the girls' parents.
"The Watcher in the Woods" (1980-81) is a mystery thick with haunting ambiance, augmented by an unnerving score. DON'T expect typical Disney kiddie fare. Despite inexplicable criticism, winsome Lynn-Holly Johnson shines as the protagonist and carries the film with Davis superlative as the curmudgeonly crone. Baker is still attractive as the mother.
The original ending of the movie wasn't finished in time so important expositional scenes were cut, which left the story nonsensical. Negative critical response to a test run in spring, 1980, resulted in the movie being pulled from theaters and, after reshoots, a more subdued ending was inserted for its official release in fall, 1981, which is the "official" ending.
The original ending included a cool a skeletal-insectoid alien as the Watcher, who eerily floats in thin air, which also appeared in the 1980 test run, minus an explanatory "other world" sequence (which was the part that wasn't completed in time). While the 1980 ending fails to properly explain events, I thought it was quite effective for the time period and for this type of movie. Not everything's tied up, but that's okay because it's a haunting mystery movie anyway. The longer version with the "other world" sequence goes overkill with the gobbledygook.
For a more low-key version with an intelligible and more interesting (but less entertaining) climax, which happens to be more faithful to the book, see the 2017 TV movie by Melissa Joan Hart.
The film runs 1 hour, 24 minutes (theatrical version), and was shot in Warwickshire, Buckinghamshire & Pinewood Studios, England, with further studio work and reshoots (directed by Vincent McEveety) done in Burbank, California.
GRADE: B
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★ 5 / 10
Oh so very boring. <em>'The Watcher in the
r96sk
Oh so very boring. 'The Watcher in the Woods' isn't necessarily a terrible film, but wow did I feel completely uninterested from (almost) start-to-finish.…
Oh so very boring.
'The Watcher in the Woods' isn't necessarily a terrible film, but wow did I feel completely uninterested from (almost) start-to-finish. Dully told plot with a plain cast list. I couldn't, unfortunately, tell you anything I actually found good about this.
Lynn-Holly Johnson (Jan), a year prior to her appearance in James Bond, is the standout, but that's only down to a process of elimination to be honest; I found the rest yawnful. They aren't helped by the writing which fails to captivate how supposedly heavy the premise is, it's all basically as it seems - obvious. I should've cared for Mrs. Aylwood (Bette Davis) but I simply didn't feel attached one bit.
It is a weird one due to it not, as noted, doing anything massively negative, it's just the fact that the (short) run time is such a chore to get through. Not one I'd recommend.
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★ 5 / 10
Scary has been sedated on sugar coated pills
thomasellery
It's the 80's not even Disney is dodging the horror craze and is attempting a scare for those whose age is still single digits.What happens when wholesome…
It's the 80's not even Disney is dodging the horror craze and is attempting a scare for those whose age is still single digits.What happens when wholesome meets horror? A lot of foliage blowing in the wind, the little girl babysat for in Halloween getting mildly possessed and lots of shrieking when lightning bolts strike.Seven year old me found this on tv in the middle of a run of Disney films in the 1980's, so after weeks of sickly sweet, this did stand out and I can remember finding it spooky - that's spooky not scary.That made me the exact audience this was for, unfortunately it's so exact it only really works if you're watching this pre your 10th birthday somewhere around 1984.It's not a bad film for something that's only a few degrees away from Scooby Doo. Rewatching this 35 years later as an adult I still made it all the way through without getting to bored as there's an 'okay' plot going on.I will say Bette Davis is fabulous wondering around like a bitter witch looking for her vodka and the rest of the cast pull it off without putting to much effort in.Make sure you YouTube the alternative endings, it's like the acid just kicked in they really want to try and scare the bejesus out of the kids.Overall it works as a nostalgic flick for background noise for adults and there maybe a few kids out there that can get over it's early 80'sness and watch it til the end.Not bad, not good but short n sweet.Horror fans this will take you to the point where you're 0.5 degrees away from not watching a horror, but you might like the soft copy catting - children writing messages backwards I'm looking at you The Shining. Creepy man in the woods with caged birds and dead animals nailed up, hiya Texas Chainsaw - so at least Disney was trying all it could!
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I wish they kept the original ending with the Creature.