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By
NICK ZEGARAC
In the late 1970s the Walt
Disney Studios was a kingdom of make-believe
perilously perched on the verge of extinction,
thanks in part to changing audience tastes and, to
a series of high-profile big budget flops. While
some of these, like "Pete's Dragon," have since
been given their reprieve on home video, the
proliferation of others, "The Watcher in the
Woods" being a prime example, seems only to
heighten the overwhelming loss of artistic
sensibility that plagued decision making at the
studio during that time. Worried that the market
for family film fare had been irreversibly eroded
with the proliferation of more gritty adult
flicks, Uncle Walt's heirs dove head first into
more mature story telling -- effectively
alienating both its remaining loyalists and the
conventional film attendee who had outgrown Mickey
Mouse.
"The Watcher in the Woods" is a ghost story that
begins in earnest and with greatest potential. It
stars Bette Davis as Mrs. Aylwood, a reclusive
landlord of an old English estate rented to the
Curtis family: mom Helen (Carroll Baker), dad Paul
(Peter McCallum) and their two daughters, Jan
(Lynn-Holly Johnson) and Ellie (Kyle Richards).
From the start Jan is in tune with some strange
psychic forces haunting the house. She notices
that a mirror above one of the fireplaces gives
off no reflections of people and sometimes
provides a strange porthole image of a young girl
who is blindfolded and reaching out for help. Jan
also begins to suspect that some of the town's
folk know exactly what's going on at their
secluded country estate. Through a bit of her own
investigating Jan learns that many years before
Mrs. Aylwood's daughter disappeared without a
trace from an abandoned church after three of her
friends performed a paranormal sacrifice.
In an off beat attempt to recapture some of the
magic of earlier Disney-fied mystery flicks like
"Candleshoe," "Watcher" cannot make up its mind
whether it wants to be an adult horror flick or a
"Freaky Friday" comedic knock-off with a feel-good
ending. There is something cinematically insincere
about the way in which the film introduces Peter
McCallum's character, Paul, and then quickly
jettisons him from the plot. Ultimately the focus
shifts from the family to the daughters, Jan and
Ellie. To be certain there are disturbing
vignettes and more than one good scare buried
under the rubble of this lost opportunity. A
perfect example occurs when Jan and Ellie wander
off into the woods and stumble onto a gnarled tree
stretching over a tiny pond. Ellie climbs one of
the tree branches and accidentally falls into the
water where she becomes trapped in a mirrored
parallel universe. Frantically, Jan uses a broken
tree branch to free and save her sister but not
before the mirror produces a glimpse of the
blindfolded girl, reflecting back at her with a
look of desperation about her silenced lips.
The primary problem with "Watcher" is that it
stumbles upon its frightening moments almost by
accident and then does not know how to either
successfully link the moments into one cohesive
narrative or bring about a logical ending to the
whole darn mess. In 1980, with a rush release date
pushing the production, director, Richard Hough
slapped together some sort of ending in which an
alien creature has been keeping Mrs. Aylwood's
daughter captive in a computer-generated
alter-universe ever since the ritual sacrifice.
Reportedly laughed off the screen at a New York
premiere, Hough cut together a version in which
Jan is sucked into a vortex. She rescues the girl
from her prism prison by doing battle with
something in the vain of a Jim Henson puppet
backlit by phosphorus effects. Ultimately, a
truncated version of the vortex finale was
released to the general public with the return of
Aylwood's daughter surfacing as something of a
tacky, tactless tack-on that betrayed both the
gothic mystery of the rest of the film and the
Disney legacy for crafting vintage family
entertainment. The film was a box office bomb in
1981, but ironically has resurfaces as something
of a cult classic.
Disney DVD gives us an identical anamorphic
widescreen DVD transfer to the one previously made
available from Anchor Bay. Though the main title
sequence is riddled with age-related artifacts and
dirt and scratches, once the film begins the
overall picture quality is fairly pleasing and
easy on the eyes. The use of soft filters renders
many scenes a hazy fuzzy mess of warm colors but
this is not the fault of DVD mastering efforts.
Colors are overall rich and vibrant, though some
slight smearing is present during night scenes.
The effects photography does not hold up well
under this sort of pristine digital scrutiny,
appearing very one dimensional and almost pasted
on as an afterthought. Contrast levels are overall
quite good though blacks are rarely solid or deep.
There's minor edge enhancement present, as well as
some heavy pixelization in various scenes.
The audio has been cleaned up and is presented at
a reasonable listening level -- it is dated but
adequate. Extras include an audio commentary in
which director Hough laments being rushed to
finish the picture, two alternate endings, a
theatrical trailer and some stills.
Bottom line is, if you're looking for the usual
Disney quality working overtime, look elsewhere. |
