Dakota Fanning as Mina in The Watchers. Photo: Warner Bros Scary stories and reality TV coalesce in Ishana Night Shyamalan’s first movie, she tells Rosa Cartagena. New horror movie The Watchers comes from a director whose family name you know, but whose filmmaking style you'll see for the first time on the big screen: Ishana Night Shyamalan.
One of three daughters of renowned director M. Night Shyamalan and his wife Bhavna, Ishana is the only other film-maker (so far) in her family. Her father, of course, has been a big influence: from encouraging a love of horror to providing training grounds on his own sets.
While studying at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts — where her parents first met — she directed episodes of his Apple TV+ show Servant . Now Ishana Shyamalan is making her own feature debut with The Watchers , an adaptation she wrote of A.M.
Shine's 2022 novel of the same name. Set in an eerie Irish forest, the story follows Mina (Dakota Fanning), a troubled American working at a pet shop. When her car breaks down, she gets lost in the woods.
Mina thinks she's saved when she finds three others, but soon learns that they are all trapped. Every night they lock themselves in a one-way mirror structure, forced to perform for invisible supernatural creatures who watch their every move. In true Shyamalan fashion, the ending packs several reveals.
Q It's not too surprising that you became a horror fan very young. Did your dad tell you and your sisters scary.
