2025
EDITED TO ADD: Le whoopsie, I hit “publish” instead of “schedule,” so this one is a day early…!
I’ve somehow both managed to completely forget the original version of this story, the book by Florence Engel Randall published in 1976, and also get it mixed up with The Owl Service by Alan Garner, which came almost a decade before in 1967. There’s something about British young adult supernatural fiction from that era, all misty woods and unexplained phenomena, that forever gets all mixed-up/remixed in my head.
I never saw the 1980 Disney adaptation of The Watcher in the Woods, but I have a feeling maybe I should have started there. This seems to be another remake that exists seemingly because someone thought, “Let’s do it again, but worse!”
The story follows an American family summering in the Welsh countryside, with eldest daughter Jan, a standard sulky teenager, immediately sniffing out something unsettling in the local atmosphere. Anjelica Huston is here, which means at least something interesting might happen. She at least looks interesting, all mournful and acid-tongued, dressed in black, wandering around the property and being generally witchy and weird. She plays Mrs. Aylwood, the mysterious manor owner, a woman weighed down by a decades-old loss, her entire existence shaped by the moment her daughter vanished without explanation. Or rather, I think that’s what they are going for. Most of the time Mrs. Aylwood’s spooky claims sound more like the ramblings of a dotty neighbor that you simultaneously indulge and edge away from every time you run into them.
The film introduces a plague doctor backstory that feels like it wandered in from a completely different film. Something about a doctor burned alive after trying to help a nearby village during the Black Plague, now haunting the woods. The town celebrates an annual festival commemorating their “miraculous” survival of the plague – a local tradition that feels more like collective delusion than historical truth. A midnight eclipse hovers at the story’s edges, promising supernatural significance but delivering nothing more than a cheap plot device. There’s a sense the filmmakers are trying to ground the ghost story in historical detail, but instead of creating intrigue, they’ve just made everything feel frustratingly vague and muddled and disconnected. The plot stumbles aimlessly, never finding its bearings or purpose. What could have been a moody, atmospheric exploration of local folklore becomes instead the equivalent of a youth group haunted house or a church basement Halloween party, tepid and toothless.
All of the images in this post are Anjelica Huston-centric because she was literally the only thing I cared about in this dumb enterprise.
Looking for more 31 Days of Horror? Day Eighteen 2024 | Day Eighteen 2023 | Day Eighteen 2022 | Or check my 31 Days of Horror category for more!
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