Watchers II (1990)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Simply A Masterpiece

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Paul Ferguson(Marc Singer, whose likability and charm bring a respectability to this B-movie)is being taken to a suspension area for punching a superior when his MP's encounter a creature that had escaped and killed several animal rights' activists when the government decides to shutdown the andodyne program(more on this in a moment). Paul is helped to escape from his hand cuffs thanks in part to an intelligent golden retriever. Fleeing from the creature, Paul holes up temporarily with his ex-wife for the night. Paul is able to flee the residence thanks to his wife(Irene Miracle)driving him past police watching her home outside. With the dog in tow, Paul is able to swap his car with a man for a jalopy so that he will not be spotted. Tracy Scoggins(trying to hide her hotness underneath nerd-glasses)is an animal behaviorist named Barabara White who was trying to teach the golden retriever how to read letters in the alphabet. She is pretty much out of college and beginning her career & is green to exactly what the company she works for actually does. Andodyne is actually a military project where scientists(in this case a doctor named Steve Malceno played completely wooden by Jonathan Farwell)create beings from genetics which are in fact linked to canines. It is a new project and the creature that Malceno is over is the first experimental venture. It is explained that the canine would be used to "spot the enemy" and the beast would attack and destroy. Unfortunately, the experiment goes awry because the creature has an uncontrollable urge to kill. So everywhere the canine goes, the creature follows leaving a bunch of dead bodies in it's wake. Soon Paul will understand that the canine is much more than just some ordinary dog and will soon be lead to Barbara because she is the only one available to trust. Will Paul and Barabara be able to stop the thing and quiet it's rampage once and for all? The film also shows the obsession of Dr. Malceno to continue his research regardless how many this thing kills. The film has a rather low budget(produced by Roger Corman..need I say more?), and at times the creature really simply looks like a man in a rubber suit. Singer and Scoggins try, but this film suffers somewhat by revealing the creature awfully early into the film. The director does try to shade the monster and this often does work, but when light reflects on it the credibility of the creature takes a lashing. The dog's tricks are fun to watch and I liked Singer enough to at least enjoy the film. This film is perhaps the close you are about to get to the quality of the Koontz novel(the first one tries the approach of "less is more", but the unveiling of the creature was laughable;the "Watchers Reborn" has that "so bad it's good" quality, but is very mediocre;the third film in this series is merely a "Predator" rip-off), which is kind of sad. You kind of wish a Koontz novel could get a decent enough budgeted film, but maybe "Watchers 2" is about as quality as we'll ever see.

More like the novel than the original, but still unsatisfying. Had its parts that where fun, but still kinda corny. Quality was dark and couldn't see what was going 80% of the time. But still I liked it.Original seemed to be more satisfying, but if your looking for a more novel like movie of Watchers - Watch it. 6/10 Because it wasn't boring, and I enjoyed a few more scenes. Yeah, watch it. Hey, it was better than the Koontz adaptation of Phantoms and Hideaway.IMDb won't let me place this unless its longer.Fine. I do own this on DVD, so it's not too bad. But if you want a REALLY GOOD Koontz adaptation see DEMON SEED. Now thats excellent. WATCH IT!!!!!

Though this film adheres a LITTLE more closely to Dean Koontz's classic horror novel than the first Watchers film, it's still not very watchable. Tracy Scoggins, once deliciously campy on the old 80s soap The Colbys, appears as a "temp" animal psychologist whose "expert" abilities include such as displaying letters of the alphabet on a computer screen and sighing, "Z. This is Z." Wonder if the character needed a college degree.... (She must be smart though, because she sports big glasses and a frumpy hairdo through most of the movie.) Marc Singer, as Paul, displays some of his Beastmaster-like love of animals bonding with the beautiful canine star -- but unfortunately he and the mutt have more chemistry than Singer and Scoggins. At least a moment in tightie-whities gives Singer a chance to show he's in even better shape than he was in his Beastmaster days. Of course, the sex appeal in that scene is toned down a bit by his pulled-up knee socks, and the director doesn't bother to try to generate even a little sexual tension between Paul and his ex-wife.) That's just one of many missed opportunities for interesting twists. And several scenes that might be a little suspenseful fall flat because we don't know enough about the threatened characters to care whether they live or die.Early on, Paul's ex-wife mutters," Paul, you're not making sense," at a moment when he's actually making as much sense as he ever does. Maybe she was just making a comment on the overall script. (She does quickly follow with one of the film's only fairly good lines: "If you're thirsty, the toilet's open, OK?" -- delivered to the dog, and probably intended for her estranged hubby as well.) The "monster," which we see much too clearly, much too soon, looks like a reject from an old episode of The Outer Limits. And its potentially layered relationship with its creator is watered down by the creator character's bored delivery of exposition.Spoiling any kind of dark tone, the dog's abilities are played for laughs in moments more fit for an old Disney flick -- like when he drives Paul's convertible. Then again, a numbingly slow scene in which the pup taps away at a computer keyboard does give a clue who might be ultimately responsible for the clunky script.If you're a fan of the book, you might enjoy seeing a few key moments transferred to the screen (thankfully, without Corey Haim, star of the first Watchers film). But amazingly bad dialog, silly writing, cheesy special effects, wooden acting, and poor lighting combine to make this a pretty big waste of time.Based on excellent source material, this could have been camp, or scary, or at least interesting. Unfortunately, it scores on none of these fronts.

In terms of quality, Watchers 2 wasn't great, but it was a far better adaptation of the Dean Koontz novel. Why? The original Watchers movie did follow the book, to a degree, but only to a degree, and the only characters from the novel were the dog and the creature. Watchers 2, on the other hand, included most of the characters from the original story.It's just my own opinion, but I believe an adapted movie should follow the book as much as possible. Watchers 2 did exactly that. Dean Koontz has been known to maintain creative control on many of the later movies based on his books, so that they also follow the book to his satisfaction.