Watchers (1988)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Corey Haim and his mom find a super intelligent dog that has escaped from a secret research facility. The dog is being hunted down by a genetically engineered sasquatch called Oxcom- who has a penchant for gouging people's eyes out.The trio are on the lam, while the men in beige from the NSO are trying to find them, so they can cover the whole fiasco up...mainly, that the Oxcom is responsible for several recent murders in town.The dog and Oxcom are telepathically linked, so they cannot hide from one another...and it is so vindictive...it will try and kill any and everyone the dog has come into contact with.So there's only one decision to be made: how to fight it.This is based on a Dean Koontz novel (that I haven't read), but I can imagine people being disappointed by it's mildly cheesy nature, if they were expecting more.The dog actor was lovable. But I was kind of hoping Corey Haim was going to sacrifice himself to save the rest of his family. Oh, well. At least he throat shanks that one dude. That's a nice consolation.The sasquatch/Oxcom thing was pretty bad...which is probably why they barely show it for more than a second at a time throughout the whole film.But it's still kind of entertaining, probably because of the dog. Yea. Definitely because of the dog.5 out of 10.

The other reviewer pretty much nailed it -- if you read the book, this movie will bring you to tears, and the book was never intended to be a tear-jerker. Here is the issue: Hollywood has never, even on its best day, done an especially good job of adapting these sorts of stories. Look at the mess they made with Stephen King (a very odd author who, history may well record, "peaked" in the 1980s -- and no one bothered to tell him). After butchering one King novel after another, after another -- and even trying "cheap movie tricks" like getting the author to adapt his own material, a clear sign of desperation! -- ultimately King's newest stuff ended up in miniseries only, with not even a pretence of making it to the big screen. My point? Well regardless of which author you favour (and Koontz has an army of fans, or, at least, used to) if they could not manage to bring King to the screen, you can only guess what a mess they made of Koontz. This is widely held to be his best work -- a brilliant suspense tail (pun!) that incorporates one of the best "dog" roles ever -- and essentially they shot themselves in the foot before even the first reel was in the camera. Packaged as a B movie, with Corey Haim (?) and Michael Ironside, this film was over before it even began. Don't see this, don't rent it, don't stream it, don't download it and -- depending on what decade or century it is when you access this IMDb entry -- don't even have it beamed directly into your cortex. Read the book.

As it is with most book to movie adaptations the book fans weren't too happy with the result.Luckily I haven't read the book and am not handicapped with knowledge that could possibly taint my viewing pleasure.With that in mind I can say that Watchers is pretty solid and entertaining throughout.Is it thrilling or scary?The movie does move along in a nice pace and does contain some thrilling moments.There is just enough suspense to maintain interest.But scary?No,not really.Although there are some scenes that are bloody and gory to satisfy the gore hounds. In this adaptation the focus lies on the dog and his friendship with Corey Haim.A high cuteness factor that is very effective especially in the scene where the dog tells Corey Haim's character that he is endangering him.It makes the dog even more likable then he already was.Same goes for Corey Haim as he is not planning to abandon his new found friend.So it seems that the horror aspects have been dumbed down to increase the action and adventure elements.In this case it works.In my opinion Watchers deserves more credit and should not get slammed because it isn't a faithful adaptation.

This failed adaptation of the Dean Koontz novel about a man befriending a super smart dog. Why do I say failed? Because they took the book's thirtysomething ex-Delta Force lead and made him Corey Haim. Yes, Corey Freakin' Haim. I'm sure Dean Koontz started rolling before he even gets close to being in a grave. Even sadder, the dog co-star acts circles around Haim. Seriously. Director Jon Hess makes a fine looking film (shot in British Columbia) and stages some nice attack sequences with some decent gore. But the monster design, something instrumental to these kind of flicks, is downright sad. Not as sad as Feldman, er, Haim being the lead, but sad enough that they have to keep it hidden in tight close ups or shadows. The always reliable Michael Ironside also gives a nice performance as the Government agent tracking the dog. Look for Jason Priestly as "Boy on bike" who gets offed.Corman made sure to get his money's worth out of his license of Koontz's novel as he made three sequels to this; they all basically remake the film with the second one being closer to the book than this one. As I said about RAWHEAD REX somewhere in this thread, I'm not a proponent of remakes but this is definitely a case where some filmmakers could make a movie 100% better from the source material.