Warner Bros. has just dropped the first trailer and poster for The Watchers (via FearHQ.com), a new horror movie from producer M. Night Shyamalan written and directed by his daughter, Ishana Night Shyamalan (and based on the novel by A.M. Shine).
Everything we see in the trailer is suitably creepy, but will it feature the same sort of huge twists that M. Night Shyamalan's movies have become known for? Many will expect that to be the case, but we're sure Ishana hopes this project will establish her as a filmmaker in her own right.
She previously helmed six episodes of Apple TV+'s Servant, a series on which her father served as showrunner.
As you might expect, there's a lot of secrecy surrounding the project, but a brief synopsis has finally been revealed along with the sneak peek and poster.
"The film follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night."
"You can’t see them, but they see everything."
The Watchers stars Dakota Fanning (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ocean’s Eight), Georgina Campbell (Barbarian, Suspicion), Oliver Finnegan (Creeped Out, Outlander) and Olwen Fouere (The Northman, The Tourist). The film is produced by M. Night Shyamalan, Ashwin Rajan and Nimitt Mankad. The executive producers are Jo Homewood and Stephen Dembitzer.
You can take a look at the trailer and poster for The Watchers below.
Inevitably, there's been some nepotism talk surrounding Ishana's big screen directorial debut, and she addressed that head-on in a January 2023 interview. "I think you know, with the Indian parentage, there's definitely a sense of pushing us to be our best and to work hard."
"And I think, you know, when people make assumptions it just kind of fuels me a bit more to work harder than the person next to me. So, it's whatever criticism of nepotism I might get, it kind of helped me; fuelled me to become an artist."
"My life experience is very different than his and so there are sort of inevitably different textures compared to the work I do," Ishana concluded. "And then also being a woman where he's a man, there's sort of a different way I can present myself, I suppose."
Joining writer/director Shyamalan behind the camera are director of photography Eli Arenson (Lamb, Hospitality), production designer Ferdia Murphy (Lola, Finding You), editor Job ter Burg (Benedetta, Elle) and costume design by Frank Gallacher (Sebastian, Aftersun). The music is by Abel Korzeniowski (Till, The Nun).
The Watchers is set to open in theaters internationally beginning on 5 June 2024 and in North America on June 7, 2024.