Watchers Reborn

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.

Although not a genius film, and certainly one that passes from cliche to cliche, there are some wonderful elements to it. Namely, between the cliches are flashes of genius and brilliance which buoy the story and make it watchable. The actors are not particularly great, however LISA WILCOX is the real star, her acting is credible and intelligent and she is a delight to watch.

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.

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 know they're not great, but I have enjoyed all four of the Watchers movies to some extent, each film piling on the hokey B-movie silliness and delivering some reasonable gore. Following in the footsteps of Corey Haim (the first film), Marc Singer (Watchers II) and Wings Hauser (Watchers III), Watchers Reborn sees Mark Hamill as L. A. police detective Murphy, who encounters Einstein the intelligent Golden Retriever, who is being tracked by a savage beast called the Outsider, dog and monster created in a laboratory by the government to act as a search and destroy team. Lisa Wilcox plays Grace, the scientist who created the super-smart dog and monster combo, and who reveals the truth about the experiment to Murphy.

After the very daft Predator-inspired jungle shenanigans of Watchers III, Watchers Reborn returns to the formula of the first two films, with Grace and Murphy on the run from both the Outsider and the government agents who will stop at nothing to keep the experiment a secret. Director John Carl Buechler (predominantly a special make-up FX artist) keeps up a reasonable pace, Hamill and Wilcox are decent enough, and Buechler's creature effects are craptabulous but fun, the monster looking like a man in a fancy dress shop gorilla costume wearing a rubber werewolf mask.

5/10 - follow the oranges!!!