The Watcher in the Woods (1980)

★ 5.9 1h 23m IMDb

Horror Thriller Fantasy

After an American family moves to an old country manor in rural England, one of the daughters is tormented by the spirit of the owner's long lost daughter, who mysteriously disappeared 30 years ago during a solar eclipse.

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Cast

Bette Davis as Mrs. Aylwood Died 1989 · Lowell, Massachusetts, USA Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regar...

Lynn-Holly Johnson as Jan Curtis Age 67 · Chicago, Illinois, USA Lynn-Holly Johnson (born December 13, 1958) is an American professional ice skater and actress. After achieving some success as a figure skater in the mid 1970s, she began an acting career, including...

Kyle Richards as Ellie Curtis Age 57 · Hollywood, California, USA Kyle Richards (born January 11, 1969) is an American actress and television personality. She is known for her few roles in horror movies as Eaten Alive, Halloween (1978) and The Car. She's also part o...

Carroll Baker as Helen Curtis Age 94 · Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA Carroll Baker (born May 28, 1931) is a former American actress who has enjoyed popularity as both a serious dramatic actress and, particularly in the 1960s, as a movie sex symbol. After studying unde...

David McCallum as Paul Curtis Died 2023 · Glasgow, Scotland, UK David McCallum (September 19, 1933 - September 25, 2023) was a Scottish actor and musician. He gained wide recognition in the 1960s for playing secret agent Illya Kuryakin in the television series The...

Director John Hough

Cast Bette Davis, Lynn-Holly Johnson, Kyle Richards, Carroll Baker, David McCallum, Benedict Taylor, Frances Cuka, Richard Pasco, Ian Bannen, Katharine Levy

r96sk 5/10 Sep 11, 2020

Oh so very boring.

<em>'The Watcher in the Woods'</em> isn't necessarily a terrible film, but wow did I feel completely uninterested from (almost) start-to-finish. Dully told plot with a plain cast list. I couldn't, unfortunately, tell you anything I actually found good about this.

Lynn-Holly Johnson (Jan), a year prior to her appearance in James Bond, is the standout, but that's only down to a process of elimination to be honest; I found the rest yawnful. They aren't helped by the writing which fails to captivate how supposedly heavy the premise is, it's all basically as it seems - obvious. I should've cared for Mrs. Aylwood (Bette Davis) but I simply didn't feel attached one bit.

It is a weird one due to it not, as noted, doing anything massively negative, it's just the fact that the (short) run time is such a chore to get through. Not one I'd recommend.

Wuchak 7/10 Feb 27, 2022

_**This ain’t no conventional Disney flick; it’s genuinely eerie**_

An American family moves into an English country manor for the summer while the mysterious owner, Mrs. Aylwood (Bette Davis), lives in the guest house. The teen daughter, Jan (Lynn-Holly Johnson), discerns something weird is going on, which is linked to Mrs. Aylwood's missing daughter, Karen (Katharine Levy), from decades earlier. Jan investigates the mystery with the aid of a neighbor (Benedict Taylor) and her younger sister (Kyle Richards). Carroll Baker & David McCallum play the girls' parents.

"The Watcher in the Woods" (1980-81) is a mystery thick with haunting ambiance, augmented by an unnerving score. DON'T expect typical Disney kiddie fare. Despite inexplicable criticism, winsome Lynn-Holly Johnson shines as the protagonist and carries the film with Davis superlative as the curmudgeonly crone. Baker is still attractive as the mother.

The original ending of the movie wasn't finished in time so important expositional scenes were cut, which left the story nonsensical. Negative critical response to a test run in spring, 1980, resulted in the movie being pulled from theaters and, after reshoots, a more subdued ending was inserted for its official release in fall, 1981, which is the "official" ending.

The original ending included a cool a skeletal-insectoid alien as the Watcher, who eerily floats in thin air, which also appeared in the 1980 test run, minus an explanatory "other world" sequence (which was the part that wasn't completed in time). While the 1980 ending fails to properly explain events, I thought it was quite effective for the time period and for this type of movie. Not everything's tied up, but that's okay because it's a haunting mystery movie anyway. The longer version with the "other world" sequence goes overkill with the gobbledygook.

For a more low-key version with an intelligible and more interesting (but less entertaining) climax, which happens to be more faithful to the book, see the 2017 TV movie by Melissa Joan Hart.

The film runs 1 hour, 24 minutes (theatrical version), and was shot in Warwickshire, Buckinghamshire & Pinewood Studios, England, with further studio work and reshoots (directed by Vincent McEveety) done in Burbank, California.

GRADE: B