Ishana Night Shyamalan's debut horror movie The Watched (international title The Watchers) opens in cinemas this Friday. Her father, director M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs), also played a big role in bringing it to life.
Acting as both a producer and second unit director on the project, the elder Shyamalan said that working on the film "changed [him] as a director," when we sat down with him to discuss The Watched.
Based on the book by A.M. Shine, the film follows Mina (Dakota Fanning) as she becomes stranded in a dense Irish woodland without any power. Coming across a curious cabin inhabited by other stranded souls, Mina learns of the existence of The Watchers. The strange creatures leave the people in the cabin alone as long as they stay in the woods, abide by their rules, and allow themselves to be observed each night. Ishana Night Shymalan directs from a screenplay she penned.
"It's the same job I've done my whole life but with a different intention," the Knock at the Cabin director says of leading the second unit on the film. "I have to deliver for [Ishana]. It's not something I came up; it's something she came up with. That created a different engine for me, when I was directing those scenes for her."
It's an experience that took him back to his roots and reminded him of being a young filmmaker. "I almost became a student again from the beginning," he continues. "Which is the dream – that you start to see it as new [again]. It changed me as director for myself, for my new film."
That new film would be Trap, a thriller starring Josh Hartnett as a dad taking his daughter to a concert. In a typical Shyamalan twist, said concert is being used by the police as a trap to lure out a vicious serial killer. There's sure to be more to this plot than meets the eye...
The Watched is released in cinemas on 7 June. Meanwhile, we can expect Trap later in the summer, on 9 August.
