Watchers Reborn

The final (to date) entry into one of the most bizarre franchises in movie history, Watchers Reborn saw release 4 years after the last instalment, but as the title would imply reboots the series, for at least the second time in its short but long standing lifespan.

I always wonder what went through author Dean Koontz head whenever the latest cheque for a Watchers movie came in. He's been rather outspoken in his criticism of some adaptations of his work, and given Roger Corman has now had 4 shots at making a Watchers movie with a 0/4 success rate he must be beside himself with these.

The plot, once AGAIN, sees a top secret government experiment to create the perfect killing machine leads to a hyper intelligent golden retriever, designed to infiltrate enemy bases, and 'the outsider' a genetically modified, humanoid monster psychically linked to the dog that will follow him and kill everyone he's been in contact with in his quest to destroy him. Via shenanigans both escape in a lab accident and the dog is taken in by a helpful stranger who teams up with a helpful and sexy scientist who worked on the project to try and defeat the Outsider and save the dog.

This one is directed by John Carl Buechler, a man more recognisable for special effects work on a lot of genre pictures but he has actually clocked up a workable resume as a director in the horror genre too. I mean he's not John Carpenter, but he's made a few fun pictures.

He clearly decided wheeling out some genre stalwarts was the way to go in terms of trying to get some buzz, so we've got Mark Hamill, who we all know is best known for Star Wars, but by 1998 was very much in B-movie purgatory in between voicing the Joker in every Batman game/cartoon under the sun. He's joined by Lisa Wilcox, best known for leading Nightmare On Elm Streets 4 & 5 and Stephen Macht from The Monster Squad, and even Kane Hodder in a cameo.

In addition, there's also a lot of stock footage in the intro. This is the second film in a row that's used the same shots of the second movie's monster even though it looks nothing like the one presented in this film.

Possibly because this is the third time we've seen this exact story told in this series (4th if you count the exposition in part 3) but this feels very tired. It's clearly very low budget, in terms of look, acting, effects and even hilariously ill-fitting score.

One note of interest is that out of the 4 movies this actually gives the best swing at incorporating one of the book's most important plot points, WHY the Outsider hates Einstein. In short, it's because the Outsider, bred to be a horrifying killing machine that repulses people, hates itself, and is jealous of the love and attention the cute dog receives. This is also the reason it rips peoples eyes out, to stop them looking at it. He was meant to be intelligent, if childlike and capable of basic speech. Previous movies have stripped this down to gimmick gore shots of ripped out eyeballs and the creature stealing teddy bears with no explanation.

Now, I'm not saying Reborn presents this particular plot angle well, or even passably, in fact it's actually responsible for some of the movies worst scenes, but I credit them for at least trying here.

The Outsider itself is another close but no cigar here. He's 90% fur with a dog like face, giving the appearance of a werewolf or bear. Well a cheap suit of one. His head honestly isn't that bad, in a cheap rubber monster way, but the furry suit looks really bad. It reminds me of the worst looking Zoanoid in the first Guyver movie, another 90s Mark Hamill mis-step.

On the subject of Luke Skywalker, he really isn't at the races here. Some of the scenes of him bantering with the dog are fun, but at this stage in his career he wasn't so much typecast as the hero in space operas as the down on his luck cop/pi in a trenchcoat whose fridge contents are exclusively cold chicken and Coors Light, and even he looks tired here. Though I like to pretend this is actually the same character he was playing in his cameo in Sleepwalkers, creating a Stephen King/Dean Koontz cinematic universe.

Aside from Luke, I actually found Lisa Wilcox to be better here than she was in the Elm Street movies, and while Stephen Macht will always be the dad in The Monster Squad to me, he's actually quite good fun as the sinister NSO agent.

Watchers Reborn is, to date, the last in this series, and it isn't exactly a high point to go out on. I did find it slightly more engaging than III (I've seen more Predator ripoffs than I have Watchers movies) but I'd still stop short of recommending it to anyone.

I loved the book too, and yes it's not exactly a blockbuster level of quality but it's workable. The story has been refactored for frugality but the basics are still there.

The dog hits his marks and plays along, it's nice to have Hamill roll out the drama in something serious and Lisa Wilcox makes a sincere effort at the cheesecake part. The outsider is cheesy but let's face it, to create the outsider the way that Koontz wrote it you'd need $10 million worth of CGI and it would still look fake.

If you haven't read the book in a while you can enjoy the memory. This does have an oddly dated feel to it, but then it is nine years old.

Believe it or not, I have now seen all four of the Roger Corman-produced WATCHERS films. The best of the series was the mediocre WATCHERS 2, though as mediocre as it was, it looks like a masterpiece compared to this fourth entry. Things don't start well with the first few minutes seemingly consisting of stock footage, and things just get worse from that point on. Mark Hamill (who was one of the producers - did he really think this project was worthy?) looks and sounds very tired, like he had been sleeping in an alley for a week before coming onto the set. Actually, Hamill isn't really to blame, because the screenplay has various plot points and plot turns you have seen in the previous WATCHERS movies. There isn't really anything new here, which will make you wonder why Corman decided to do the same old things once again, especially since it looks like he had less money to spend than in the previous films. Even if you were involved in the production of the movie, there's no compelling reason to watch these end results.

Man, Roger Corman certainly got his moneys worth out of the film rights to the Dean Koontz novel WATCHERS. This, the fourth entry in the series, continues the saga of Einstein the Golden Retriever and his mutant buddy/stalker The Outsider. The Outsider breaks out of a Government facility where he and Einstein are being tested on. The duo are on the loose and The Outsider kills off a zoo security guard. Det. Murphy (Mark Hamill) is on the case and quickly discovers the dog and scientist Grace (Lisa Wilcox) snooping around. The mean Feds (led by Stephen Macht) are also on the case and want to kill everyone associated with the project to keep it hush-hush. Naturally, that means kill them in public.

Despite an offer of new ideas (REBORN), this is the same ol' WATCHERS. Man finds dog. Dog is smart. Monster chases dog. Dog saves lives. The end. And what does it say about a film when the best actor is a dog? I'm not kidding. Einstein, who gets no screen credit, displays better emotions than Hamill ever does. Director John Carl Buechler keeps things moving fast enough and the kills are all gory so I guess it has that going for it. The end tries to go for a sympathetic Frankenstein's monster twist but it isn't working when your monster looks this bad. "Pet me," he cries at one point to great comic effect. Wilcox, who played Alice in ELM STREET 4 & 5, sports blonde hair in this and looks like a dead ringer for Barbara Campton. As always, Macht gives a solid turn as the heel. He must be filed in all Hollywood Rolodexes under "Bad Guy."

A terrible movie here, folks. First of all, it's hard to review this film objectively. I REALLY enjoyed the book (one of my favourite Dean Koontz novels), and I'm way too much of a Mark Hamill fan (regardless of what everybody tells me). But this was a uniquely weak film. I've mentioned before that films with the potential for good/greatness are much more disappointing than those that were empty from the beginning. This is, what, the tenth attempt to make Koontz's "Watchers" into a movie, and again, somebody somewhere screwed up. I mean, what is the problem with this book? I can't tell you, except that even after several other tries, this one is particularly bad. The acting was sub-par, the violence hokey and unnecessary, the special effects laughable, and the editing was as bad as a sixth-grader with two VCRs. There were a couple of moments when I thought, "Wait a minute, maybe this won't suck," which made it all the worse when it did. "Nightmare on Elm Street 4 & 5"'s Lisa Wilcox wasn't spectacularly awful, just awful. The pathetic-but-didn't-have-to-be monster was never scary, and often so poorly done that I longed for another Ewok movie. I guess the once-great Mark Hamill should stick with cartoon voice-overs.