Deep in the remote forests of Ireland, twigs snap, shadows rip through darkness and 20-something-year-old Mina (Dakota Fanning) dashes for her only solace: a concrete bunker placed at the center of the woods. This is the bare-bones premise for the horror film “The Watchers,” adapted from A.M. Shine’s gothic horror novel of the same title. The movie follows sullen Mina, a pet shop clerk with a tragic past whose apathy lands her in the haunting Irish wilderness. There, she joins forces with three others who have been stuck in the solitary forest and must band together to make their way back to civilization. In a “Shyamalan” twist, it is not the patriarch of the family, M. Night, who took on this cinematic endeavor but his daughter, Ishana. “The Watchers” airs in theaters starting today, June 7, and is the Tisch School of Arts graduate’s first feature film.
From the physical demands of shooting on location in Galway, Ireland, to creative pauses and delegating what aspects of the book made it to the onscreen adaptation, Ishana Shyamalan did it all. Character Media sat down with the burgeoning director to ask about the making of “The Watchers,” whether filmmaking has always been for her and more.
Character Media: What was the most challenging part of taking on “The Watchers,” your first feature?
Ishana Night Shyamalan: I prepared myself early on, knowing the endurance level it takes to make a feature is quite high. Then, I found myself even more shocked and surprised at how much you need to make something of this scope. It was very much, throughout the process, a curation of myself [and] figuring out how I could create sustainable art.
CM: Did you read the novel first and then decide to adapt it?
IS: Yeah. The book came to us through a producer, and it was…
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