The Watcher in the Woods (1980)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

. . . to the Bette Davis from OF HUMAN BONDAGE (1934), and returning home after 60 minutes to a Mom who's morphed into the Bette Davis of HUSH, HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE (1964). This is exactly what happens to Katherine Levy in this little-known horror movie released in the late 1900s. Though Ms. Levy's character has spent the intervening three decades (identical to the time span between BONDAGE and HUSH) sequestered in some sort of suspended animation under the nose of a nine-foot dragonfly orbiting earth in an UFO (at least in Alternate Ending #2), The Earth Has NOT Stood Still. Nearly half a century of chain-smoked coffin nails has reduced Bette's version of "Mom Aylwood" into a saggy baggy caricature of her former Sadomasochistic BONDAGE self. Any of the actors Betty Dissed in the 1930s who survived long enough to view THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS surely enjoyed "the last laugh" spying Betty Big Eyes portraying an apparent Rodent Queen in the spectacularly cheesy fright fest. Beyond witnessing Ms. Davis' physical demise, WATCHER's main takeaway is that "Karen" spelled backwards is "Nerak."

When a family moves to a country home, the young girls experience strange happenings that have a link to an occult event years past.I wasn't really aware of this film until Rue Morgue magazine did a focus on it. And wow, it really deserves a wider audience. John Hough is a great director; his "Hell House" is one of my all-time favorites. Here, working more in a family-friendly way, he still manages to terrify.Although the older sister is a terrible actress, at least when she is trying to be emotional, the movie as a whole stands up as creepy and a decent mystery. You can never go wrong with those films where kids know more about what is going on than their parents do.

So this one is not that scary... It's more mystery and family and it's made by Disney so this can be watched by anyone... Mostly... So story is about family that moved to a county home and they suddenly experience some strange happenings(or you can call it paranormal). Story follows mostly two sisters(Jan and Ellie) while their parents are not big part of the whole story... So after some time they stumble across Mrs. Aylwood who is typical character(antagonist) that everybody should be scared of... But she is not... Jan suddenly realize what is that but then latter she connect that with Mrs. Aylwood... But lets just stop there and talk about acting a bit. So their performances are average i think that there are few scenes where they act like really out of place so different and better... Even when movie introduces you to other characters(Mary,Tom,John) they still act average... But move came out 1980 and feels so much like movie from 1970s(but that makes sense)... So lets continue with the story... Jan finds out what happened to her daughter and tries to convict them to perform ritual again! They had their secret society! After whole that trouble between and before they finally performed ritual and Mrs. Aylwood's daughter is back and that is the end! Well there is not that much of the watcher in the woods its just that format and you constantly have that camera angle from woods and places that should convict you that something is watching you! it works but after sometime it gets boring with... So here it is The watcher in the woods!!! You should watch it! It's experience on its own!

It's a pretty hard movie to rate. Since it's from Disney I was prepared that it would not be too scary and it was going to have a happy ending. Indeed that proved to be the case. The story was simple but interesting enough to hold my attention for the whole duration. The problem however is that the actions become rather repetitive. It is always the eldest sister Jan who gets to see images from the girl that got lost 30 years ago after what seemed an innocent game. And it's her youngest sister Ellie that acts as some kind of medium giving Jan hints about what to do. So yeah that starts about 10 minutes in and continues for over an hour. Along the way we meet a few other characters but it all remains vague. Also the ending left me with an empty feeling, wondering what that entity was and where the lost girl had been all this time. Where was it and what did it do on earth and why did it come here in the first place? I thought the acting from anyone was rather wooden as if they were going through the motions. It's not that Lynn-Holly Johnson didn't try but there was little given to make something decent from it. Too bad a great actress like Bette Davis had so little to do.