Les yeux de la forêt

This movie terrified me as a child. So I ran across it and had to buy it. I was expecting it to be horrible and cheesy as an adult, but I was wrong.

This movie has some scary parts, even to adults, and I've watched hundreds of horror movies. This one still creates a few chills.

The basic plot is that a family moves to a new house next to some spooky old lady. One of the daughters starts seeing weird things, like a blind-folded girl in the mirror. She also learns the spooky old-lady neighbor had a daughter that disappeared about 20 or 30 years ago. She investigates this mystery despite the scary things that happen.

I promise this movie will at least give you a few chills. The creepy girl in the mirror still freaks me out. It's hard to believe this was a Disney film.

Ok, it might not be the greatest movie out there, but I really enjoyed it when I was a kid. And because of that the few times since then that I have watched it, I have held a kind of fascination with it. But alas, my opinion is tainted by childhood. That scary (oh so scary) scene in the fun house haunted me for a long time. And Bette Davis, she is awesome.

I have very little interest in movies about the supernatural. Subjects like ESP and other psychic powers just don't interest me. You should keep that in mind, as I am sure this had an impact on my enjoyment of the movie. So why did I watch it? Bette Davis. It's one of the only films she made that I have never seen--this one and "Return to Witch Mountain"--both of which are considered kids' films. However, I noticed that at least in the case of "Watcher in the Woods", it has appeal for all ages and isn't just another Disney family film. No, it has a bit more of an edge and apparently was a deliberate attempt by the studio to branch into PG-rated films for the first time--with this film and "The Black Hole" (a film I really disliked). Apparently, pre-screenings for "Watcher" were not good, so the studio decided to release "The Black Hole" first--though in hindsight, I think "Watcher" was a much better and less 'kiddie' oriented.

The story begins with a family moving to a home in England. Almost immediately, weird things start happening involving the oldest daughter. She starts having what appear to be spooky visions--and they are quite frightening and also sometimes warn her of impending disasters (more than once saving her life). Soon, her little sister starts hearing things--and all this is too coincidental not to mean something is seriously wrong. See the film to find out what happens next.

All in all, a mildly diverting film but one that didn't have a huge impact on me. It's not bad--but lacks scary qualities that might have made it better--like the film sometimes pulled its punches. Still, it's worth seeing.

This is a movie I'll always remember as one of the ones that sparked my interest for the horror genre, and yet, I only saw it just now from start to finish for the very first time. There's a nice (albeit totally irrelevant) story behind that. Back in my grade school years, it was tradition for the entire class to watch a movie on the Fridays before each major school holiday. After enduring multiple gentle Disney movies, like "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", "Robin Hood" and "Mary freaking Poppins", our second grade teacher suggested to watch a slightly more mature and serious film, this being "The Watcher in the Woods". Personally I was very enthusiast, but several of my wimpy classmates got too scared during the opening credits already and the teacher decided it would be better to turn it off. Darn soft kids! The atmospheric and unsettling opening sequences (showing images of a forest guided by remotely eerie music) were exactly what fascinated me, and I'm sure these brief images contributed a lot to my current obsession with everything that involves horror. For some reason I never saw it again until now, nearly 20 years later, and that's quite a shame because "The Watcher in the Woods" is a movie you're supposed to see at young age. It's primarily a fantasy film, and those are far more appropriate for child-audiences because their imagination is far more vivid and the substantial defects are easier to overlook.

These are two fundamentally required characteristics when watching the movie, by the way. You need to have a vivid imagination and complete the story in your own mind (because the script is full of holes and suffered from drastic re-writes) and you definitely need to look past a lot of shortcomings. It's basically an ordinary supernaturally themed mystery, but obviously without shocking death sequences and complex undertones because it's a Disney film. The model Curtis family moves into an ancient English countryside mansion bordering on an immense forest. The owner, the peculiarly behaving Mrs. Aylwood, is very strict regarding her tenants, but she welcomes the Curtis family because the teenage daughter Jan reminds her of her own daughter Karen, who inexplicably disappeared nearly 30 years ago. Almost promptly, the youngest girl Ellie starts hearing silent voices and Jan notices a frightening presence as if someone's constantly watching her from within the woods. Jan develops the impression that Mrs. Aylwood daughter might still be around and that her spirits is trapped in the woods.

The finished product clearly suffers under the massive amount of re-edits, re-shoots and re-writes of the script. It looks as if the creators realized at a certain point that the movie was too sentimental and/or not suspenseful enough, so the quickly added improperly elaborated hints towards alternate dimensions, solar eclipses and bizarre initiation rites. The last 15-20 minutes are a messy hodgepodge of ideas and, eventually, you're left to your own devices to copy and paste the conclusion together. "The Watcher in the Woods" is at its most effective when talented director John Hough uncannily trolleys his camera through the thick and sinister woods, or when Bette Davis gives a one-woman-show as the intriguing Mrs. Aylwood. The music is excellent and the special effects showcased during the finale are guaranteed to astound young viewers with a healthy interest in the macabre.

"The Watcher in the Woods" was made at a time when Disney was getting ambitious, making PG-rated films and dipping its toes into different genres; other efforts, of course, include "The Black Hole", "Tron", and "Something Wicked This Way Comes". Co-written by Brian Clemens ('The Avengers', "Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter") based on the novel by Florence Engel Randall, it tells a story with a very atmospheric feel. As others have said, it has the appeal of a fairy tale.

An American family comes to live in an isolated English country estate owned by a lonely recluse, Mrs. Aylwood (screen legend Bette Davis). In no time at all, the two daughters, teen-aged Jan (Lynn-Holly Johnson) and younger Ellie (Kyle Richards) are besieged by otherworldly forces, and Jan realizes something must be done to resolve the case of Mrs. Aylwoods' daughter Karen, who'd disappeared many years ago when she was Jans' age.

Director John Hough and crew make this something worth watching with their moody and stylish presentation. Sometimes the special effects get overly cheesy, and they do tend to stick out a little too much. The reasonably compelling, and never too complicated, story does a decent job of pulling the viewer in, along with especially strong lighting by Alan Hume and camera-work by Jack Lowin and Malcolm MacIntosh. Right from the start these individuals help to create a very weird feel to the proceedings.

Carroll Baker and David McCallum don't get a lot to do as the parents, especially McCallum, but the other adults are all fine, including Richard Pasco as the frightened Tom Colley and Ian Bannen as the cantankerous John Keller. Ms. Davis is wonderful as the distraught old lady who realizes that she could finally find out the truth behind her daughters' disappearance, while Johnson, despite her appeal, really overdoes it in terms of her characters' hysteria.

What's interesting is how many times the ending was altered during the history of this film. It was originally shown at 100 minutes, with an overly abrupt ending, then given an elaborate special effects based finale, and then it was reworked again for the films' re-release the following year. The alternate endings are available on DVD for fans to check out.

The film is not particularly memorable, but it's pretty enjoyable while it lasts.

Seven out of 10.