Summary
Warning: this article contains spoilers for The Watchers.The Watchersis not one of thebest horror movies of 2024, but it has a big twist in the final act that is thoroughly hinted at even before the characters converge. After becoming trapped in a seemingly inescapable forest, Dakota Fanning’s Mina becomes suspicious of Olwen Fouéré’s Madeline. The other two who are trapped with them have followed Madeline’s direction since she is the only one in the group with any answers. They’re willing to chalk it all up to Madeline having been stuck in this situation the longest and picking up rules and tricks to survive.
The truth is far more insidious. Written and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan,The Watchersoffers the kind of twist Ishana’s father,M. Night Shyamalan, enjoys teasing an audience with. As the group struggles to survive while also being encouraged by Mina to look for ways to escape, clues are sprinkled throughout thatMadeline is actually one of the creatures of the forest known as a Changeling. From her behavior to her expertise in all things fairies and mysterious forests, the hints become fairly obvious on a rewatch of thefolk horror movieif they were not picked up the first time around.
The Watchers Ending Explained By Director Ishana Night Shyamalan
Director Ishana Night Shyamalan explains the end of The Watchers, her new horror film movie starring Dakota Fanning and Georgina Campbell.
6Madeline Never Admits How Long She’s Been Trapped
She is often vague about personal details
After Mina finds herself in the mysterious observation box, she askshow long the characters inThe Watchershave been in the forest. Ciara (Georgina Campbell) guesses between four and five months, while Daniel (Oliver Finnegan) tells her he has been there for eight months and three days. When the question comes around to Madeline, the only detail she is willing to offer is that she has been there for a very long time. It’s not suspicious if she is unable to remember the exact number of months or years, butMadeline appears to be hiding something from the start.
The Tourist
TV Series
Madeline is guarded around the others, rightly so, but she always comes across as mysterious as the circumstances these people have found themselves in. The topic comes up more than once, but she is only ever willing to point out that she’s been there longer than the others, so she should be listened to regarding how to stay alive. Madeline being unwilling to offer more personal information (until it is conveniently beneficial to her), compared to Mina, Ciara, and Daniel, is one of the initial clues that there is more to her than meets the eye.
5She Knows Every Single Rule Of The Forest
Madeline is the only one with any knowledge about the Changelings
Throughout the movie, Mina and the audience are introduced to the list of rules established byThe Watcherscreaturesvia Madeline. Ciara and Daniel have been stuck in the forest for months and have seemingly not learned anything beyond what the older woman has taught them.Madeline’s knowledge extends beyond how to survive in the boxand the hallucinations of the forest as well. The other three are nearly entirely dependent on her, which gives the group an unbalanced power dynamic, often leaning in Madeline’s favor.
Madeline initially attempts to explain that her vast knowledge of the forest, the box, and the creatures beyond stems from how long she has supposedly been trapped there. There are details about them, however, that feel largely inaccessible to humans in general and don’t account for all of Madeline’s expertise. She knows about their sense of smell or when they’re giving a standing ovation, all the points of no return in the forest, how their dens seem to work, and more. It’s unimaginable she could have survived this long with such intimate knowledge unlessshe already knew all about the Changelings due to being one.
4Madeline Has A Unique Understanding Of The Changelings
Actual humans usually die once they learn more about the creatures
As established in the first scene when Ciara’s husband tries to escape and is killed, when a human gets close enough to a Changeling to learn more about their secrets, they die. This is another hint regarding Madeline’s upbringing. Given the circumstances, her understanding of the Changelings is relatively impossible if she is fully human. The movie depicts a rule for the audience from the beginning: if you get too close, you die in the forest at night or near their underground dens during the day. How, then, can Madeline obtain this knowledge about the creatures?
The Watchersis based on A.M. Shine’s book of the same name. The characters Madeline and Professor Burke are not in the novel; they were newly added to the film.
The clues about Madeline are often subtle or seemingly explainable, butShyamalan threads them throughout the first part of the story. Madeline’s awareness about how the Changeling’s function and how to survive them is likely the biggest. One example that stands out is when she saves Mina from being discovered after the two are locked out of the box by Daniel at nightfall. Madeline knows exactly where to take Mina to prevent her smell from attracting the Changelings and is able to keep the two of them alive outside at night, even though it’s supposed to be impossible.
3Mina Becomes Suspicious Of Madeline Almost Immediately
Mine is seeing signs and trying to spell them out for viewers
Mina is significant to the story because she’s the one who changes things. Whether from her deep understanding of humanity due to her tragic past, extreme guilt and depression, or even her experience as a twin and mimicking similarly to the Changelings,Mina becomes the catalyst for finding a way out of the forest. She is tapped into an awareness the others are not and is, at her core, a good and reliable human being. Mina is intuitive and picks up on the possibility Madeline has been lying to them far more quickly than Ciara and Daniel — or is simply not in denial.
Mina distrusts Madeline not because she has an innate lack of trust when it comes to other people, but becauseshe picks up on red flags the audience is also meant to be seeing. Even when Madeline saves Mina and tries to prove herself trustworthy, Mina never completely turns her back on her instincts that Madeline is lying to them. The only thing Mina cannot piece together is what exactly Madeline is lying about until the last section of the film.
Ciara and Daniel become volatile characters at different points and in separate contexts, but they’re never suspicious like Madeline.
With Mina acting as a sort of avatar of the viewers also trying to solve the mystery, her character is strongly pointed towards Madeline as central to solving the puzzle for nearly the entire runtime. Ciara and Daniel become volatile characters at different points and in separate contexts, but they’re never suspicious like Madeline. While the big reveal that Madeline is a Changeling (more technically, a Halfling) who finally figured out how to almost perfectly mimic a human may be a surprising twist for some, her involvement does not come out of nowhere.
2Her Extensive Knowledge Conveniently Doesn’t Apply To The Underground Bunker
Madeline knew everything about the woods but somehow missed the doorway to Burke’s shelter
Madeline’s main cover is that she has been trapped in this mysterious area the longest, which is only half true. She also has a remarkable amount of knowledge about the forest and the Changelings. Yet, somehow, she wants Mina, Ciara, and Daniel to believe she never discovered Professor Burke’s secret bunker below their feet, along with the hatch waiting underneath a rug. This glaring clue could be the most damning, as Madeline’s extensive awareness of the environment and then being stumped by something hidden in plain sight should immediately be questioned.
Luckily for her, the others are too distracted by their discovery to put two and two together. However, when Mina figures it out later, this key moment in the film immediately jumps to mind. Madeline had been too consequential in surviving the Changelings and the forest for something so important to have completely gone undiscovered by her. Of course, as viewers find out soon enough, that’s because Madeline knew about the bunker all along asshe was the Changeling that Professor Burke lured down into his secret hideaway previously.
1Madeline Claims She Was A Professor Like Burke
The biggest hint Madeline was a Changeling all along
Another significant hint about the movie’s biggest twist is Madeline finally sharing personal information with the group — which is ultimately a mix of her own history and Professor Burke’s. She tells them that she is a history professor and explains that the creatures in the woods are Changelings, a.k.a. fairies from Irish folklore. According to the story, Changelings and humans were once allies but eventually became enemies, and a war between the species resulted in the remaining Changelings being trapped in the forest.
Madeline also explains how Changelings are able to mimic humansand the reason they allow humans to live in the box if they follow the rules is because they have been studying them. They’re not just there for entertainment; the fae needs them in order to learn how to look and behave like humans. As Madeline dumps this information on the others, she reveals everything without them being none the wiser. Madeline perfected how to look like Elizabeth, Burke’s dead wife, over the time she spent with him and the photos he had.
His theory was driven by grief at the loss of his wife, andThe Watchersexplores the dangers of hubris and love.
Professor Burke believed humans could transcend deathby a Changeling taking on their visage and behaving like them. His theory was driven by grief at the loss of his wife asThe Watchersexplores the dangers of hubris and love. Madeline describes the history of Changelings and reveals their desires right before Mina, Ciara, and Daniel learn that Burke built the observation box and about his desperate goals. The message is glaring: Madeline knows all this because she’s a Changeling, and as Mina pieces together, Burke assisted in developing Madeline’s human-like identity.
The Watchers
Cast
Based on A.M. Shine’s novel, The Watchers follows Mina, a twenty-eight-year-old artist stranded in the middle of a forest in Ireland. Her momentary relief when she finds shelter is shattered when she discovers other strangers in the same predicament - but they’re stalked each night by unseen creatures.
