“Try not to die!” When Dakota Fanning ’s Mina prepares for a night out with a bird on loan from the pet shop, she gives him that warning in jest before bolting out the door. Little does she know, the sunny yellow bird will soon parrot that phrase back to her as she faces unimaginable horrors deep in the woods of Ireland. Thankfully, the real bird had a more calming presence on set.
“Her real name was Sunshine. She was great! Easygoing. No problems.
Got a lot of attention. Everyone really loved her and took really good care of her. She was munching on blueberries most of the time in her little cage,” Fanning says of her feathered co-star.
“ The Watchers ,” in theaters Friday from Warner Bros., follows Mina as she finds herself trapped in the forest with three strangers ( Georgina Campbell , Oliver Finnegan and Olwen Fouéré), forced to abide by the rules of mysterious malevolent creatures each night. The quartet must sequester themselves each night in “the coop,” a bunker-like structure featuring a giant two-way mirror.
There’s not much there in the way of entertainment – except for the old TV, that is. It’s equipped with a single DVD with a season of “Lair of Love,” a “Love Island”-esque dating series. “I was watching ‘Love Island’ as I was writing the script,” director and writer Ishana Shyamalan tells Variety with a laugh, adding that she found a curious parallel between the film’s protagonists and reality contestants.
“I am ju.
