The Watcher in the Woods

Though Disney has always been synonymous with non-confrontational and conformist family entertainment, we can find in its rich history sporadic cases when the studio’s management approved a project that went in a distinctive direction. Unfortunately, however, the studio has treated most such titles like red-headed stepchildren, having them reshot or re-edited, or simply refusing to release them or allow a director’s cut to be made, despite the pleas of fans. The brilliant The Watcher in the Woods shares this fate with films such as Return to Oz, Something Wicked This Way Comes and Dragonslayer. The Watcher is a unique attempt at a children’s horror movie with fantasy elements and it is necessary to add that it was made a few years before E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the birth of Amblin Entertainment and the associated boom in horror- and fantasy-style adventure movies that characterised children’s film production in the 1980s. However, this adaptation of Florence Engel Randall’s novel of the same name differs from all of the films that came after it in that it is a pure-blooded horror movie that crystallises into a children’s narrative only in the climax, whereas those other films transfer horror props or effects into the children’s genre with all of its stylistic rules. Like the masterful horror movies of the time, The Watcher in the Woods carefully builds its atmosphere using supernatural motifs suggestively rendered by means of its cinematography, editing and music, with only a minimum of special effects – especially Alan Hume’s camerawork gets under the viewer’s skin with its creeping movements and optical emphasising of the space. After all, the narrative itself rather exhibits the techniques of classic horror movies with elements such as an ominous house in the middle of a forest, mysterious events and the evident predestination of the main character, who bears a striking resemblance to the missing daughter of the house’s owner. The aforementioned ending is thus all the more surprising, as it actually negates everything that came before it, though that is rather more the fault of the studio, which did not give the director the option of creating a more complex climax as was originally intended. Nevertheless, even in its existing form, the film still remains a unique work and proof that it is possible to create a horror atmosphere without any bloody scenes, monsters, acts of aggression or a direct threat. On the contrary, it’s enough to have a continuously intensified mystery and a suggestive form.  (04/05/2014)