Is The Watchers Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Somewhat, 4 out of 10. It's a forest creature story with jump scares and one very tense night outdoors.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
4 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
Low
The feeling is gone shortly after the credits, though you may avoid a mirrored window for the evening.
DOG
Dog: fine
none, there is no dog, only a parrot.
Ruling: Good for a Friday night if you can handle jump scares and a parrot as the main supporting cast.
The Watchers runs one hour and forty-two minutes. A woman delivering a parrot gets lost in a forest in Ireland and ends up in a bunker with a mirrored window, three strangers, and a list of rules.
The premise, briefly
A woman delivering a parrot breaks down in a forest and takes shelter in a bunker with three strangers and a short list of rules.
How much do you want to know?
🐱
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
The Watchers are shapeshifting fairies, and Madeline turns out to be one, a hybrid who can stand sunlight. She attacks Mina, who asks her to let go of her hatred of humans, and Madeline grows wings and flies away. Mina survives and makes up with her sister Lucy, though Madeline is still watching her.
The scene you're dreading
In the middle of the movie, Daniel shuts Mina and Madeline out of the Coop for a night. The two hide in the forest and watch the Watchers, who look like the people inside, react angrily to their absence. Both of them make it back in.
The dog
There is no dog in The Watchers. A crow is caught for food and has its neck snapped, and Darwin the parrot lives.
The Watchers is a moderate creature thriller with jump scares and one tense night, and it ends on a mostly hopeful note.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
A bunker with a window that looks back
Mina works at a pet shop in Galway and agrees to carry a golden conure parrot over to a zoo outside Belfast. Her car breaks down in a forest, and while she looks for help she finds a bunker where an old woman called Madeline tells her to come inside if she wants to live. The bunker is called the Coop, and Madeline lives there with Ciara and Daniel, who also got lost in the forest. After dark, they line up at the Coop's mirrored window to be looked at by the Watchers. Madeline lays out the rules. Anyone caught outside the Coop at night is killed by the Watchers, and nobody may go into the Burrows, the tunnels where the Watchers retreat by day to avoid the sun.
The group has been stranded for months. Ciara's husband John walked out a few days earlier and has not returned. Daniel goes with Mina into a Burrow, where she finds a camcorder and a bicycle and barely escapes a Watcher. That night John shows up at the Coop, but Madeline will not let him in, certain it is a Watcher pretending to be him. The Watchers crack the mirror in anger, and Madeline puts the items back in the Burrow to calm them down. The scene to brace for comes in the middle of the movie, when winter arrives and the group turns on each other. Daniel shuts Mina and Madeline outside for the night. They hide in the forest and watch the Watchers, who look like the people inside, react angrily to the two being gone.
The professor's video diaries
Mina and Madeline return to the Coop. Madeline then explains that the Watchers are shapeshifting fairies who are still working on copying humans convincingly. While the Watchers batter the Coop, the group discovers a hidden door that leads down to a study, where Mina finds the video diaries of Professor Rory Kilmartin. He came to the forest to study the fairies, caught one, and grew attached to it. His final entry finds him depressed. He explained how to leave the forest, wanted his university research wiped out, and then went upstairs to shoot his captive and himself.
Following a dead man's directions to a river
The next morning the group heads off along the professor's route to the river that marks the forest's edge. Madeline shows them a stone marker for the place where the fairies, stripped of their wings, were locked away after a war with humans. A Watcher disguised as John kills Daniel, and the others escape by taking the professor's boat. Back in civilization, Mina visits his university office to destroy his notes and learns that humans and fairies once lived together in peace, and some even had hybrid children. She is horrified to see that Madeline looks like Chloe, a woman who died in 2001, and she realizes Madeline is a fairy.
The ending, explained
Madeline attacks Mina and Ciara at Ciara's home. She says the Watchers cast her out because she could stand sunlight, and Mina guesses that this is because she is a hybrid. Mina asks her to give up her hatred of humans and go look for other hybrids. Madeline grows wings and flies off. Daniel is dead and Mina is alive. She makes up with her estranged twin sister Lucy and tells her that Madeline is still watching, this time as a little girl standing in a crowd.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: none, there is no dog, only a parrot.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is The Watchers scary?
Somewhat. The Watchers is a 4 out of 10: a forest creature thriller with jump scares, little gore, and a tense night in the middle. The dread is low and fades after the credits.
How does The Watchers end?
Madeline, who turns out to be a fairy hybrid, attacks Mina, who asks her to let go of her hatred of humans, and then she grows wings and flies away. Mina survives and reconciles with her sister Lucy.
Does the dog die in The Watchers?
There is no dog in The Watchers. A crow is caught for food and has its neck snapped, and Darwin the parrot lives.
Is there a post-credits scene in The Watchers?
No. The Watchers has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
What are the Watchers in The Watchers?
The Watchers are shapeshifting fairies who imitate humans to learn how to copy them. They avoid sunlight, so they retreat to underground tunnels by day. A stone marker near a river shows where fairies were once imprisoned after a war with humans.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of The Watchers is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
You don't have to stand in front of a mirrored window to find out how The Watchers goes. Install Scaredy Cat and it will blur horror before you see it.
