Movie Review: The Watcher (2016)

Synopsis: Still grieving the loss of their infant son, a young couple starts a new life by purchasing a new home in a quiet neighborhood. The house, however, has a tragic history and, shortly after moving in, the couple is terrorized by someone calling themselves "the Raven," who is determined to get them to move out.

Who's in it? The movie stars Erin Cahill, Denise Crosby, Edi Gathegi, Tracie Thoms, Kevin Daniels and Riley Baron.


Review: My wife and I recorded this movie some time ago and, in the interest of clearing out some space on our DVR, we wound up finally watching it last night. When we first came across this film, we thought it would be a creepy film. However, while it had the potential to be, it fell short.

My biggest complaint about this movie is it is very predictable. It's not overly difficult to figure out "the Raven's" motives for terrorizing the new homeowners and, once that becomes apparent, it's pretty obvious who is behind the threats.

I also wasn't overly crazy about that giant Raven. The anonymous letters and threats were intense but seeing someone dressed up like a giant bird was just dumb in comparison.

The thing that really got me though was the way everyone seemed so nonchalant about it. The police didn't seem to care. The husband (Gathegi) was more than happy to go to work every day and even the wife (Cahill) wasn't very believable when she said she was stressed out and not getting any sleep.
Not to mention, when she started showing signs of being seriously ill, why didn't she bother getting checked out by a doctor? A simple blood test would have revealed the truth much faster than their "investigation" into who the Raven was.

The movie did, admittedly, try to throw a curve ball at the end by making another character look guilty too. But, that surprise twist really didn't work for me because it seemed as though it was thrown in at the last second without any real effort to give it a believable backstory. That made it worse than no surprise twist at all.

Final Opinion: The description sounds good and the movie had some potential. However, the film's predictability and lack of overall execution meant it failed to live up to that potential.

My Grade: D

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