Watchers III (1994)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

best movie i've ever seen.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Horror novelist Dean R. Koontz has expressed unhappiness about several cinematic adaptations of his novels (like with HIDEAWAY). Though I haven't heard what he thinks of what Roger Corman did with WATCHERS, I think it's pretty safe to assume that he's appalled, especially since Corman has used the rights to the novel to make several awful movies, including this one. Where to begin? Well, even though the end credits reveal this was filmed in South America, it sure doesn't look spectacular. The various jungle locations look bland and all alike. The story is pretty slow, with not that much jungle action and gore for the first half of the movie. When we *do* see the monster, it's a shockingly bad creation - just imagine the monsters you have seen in 1950s Corman movies, and you'll have a good idea as to how this unconvincing creation looks like. I guess some of the gore effects aren't bad, and it's always good to see Wings Hauser, but the movie ends up being overall a bad and boring imitation of PREDATOR. With PREDATOR freely available for rent or purchase, there's no reason to see this third-rate imitation.

Exec. Producer Roger Corman's third attempt at adapting Koontz's novel turns out to be more DIRTY DOZEN/PREDATOR and less Koontzian (did I just invent a word?). The Outsider and Einstein the Golden Retriever are dropped in the middle of a Central American jungle. When things go awry, the Government sends in military prisoner Ferguson (Wings Hauser) and a few cellmates to clean up their mess with the promise of a full pardon. But can they trust that sneaky Government? This is totally by the numbers movie making but it is short enough, gory, and features a good performance by b-movie vet Hauser to keep you interested. Hauser has such an intensity that he can make even dialogue scenes with a dog seem important. The rest of the cast just traipse around until they get their opportunity to be killed. Interestingly, the screenplay has a woman and native mute kid in the mix with the woman getting killed and the kid not doing anything. Strange. Even stranger, the evil Government (who truthfully sent Hauser there to be killed) never gets its comeuppance as all b-movies dictate. Instead, they get away with it, outside of losing The Outsider. I would love to hear Dean's thoughts on all of these sequels, if he has even seen them.

One Watcher asked who makes these movies? Well who doesn't know Roger Corman or Loyd Kaufman, Full Moon etc. Also why are they made. Well probably because they are making money. What investor or company is going to want to invest in something that won't make it's money back. Yeah, they are cheesy and sometimes horrible, but they are still fun. When I watch a Roger Corman movie I know not to expect Lord of the Rings or the Godfather. I mean come on it's Concorde. Believe it or not there is a market for this or they wouldn't be hear. I mean dude Carnasour, Rapter, Deadly Outbreak, Cybervengence, The Outsider (which is basically a cheap straight to video remake of Westworld) When you hear the midi music that should really clue you in this is going to be a b-film. When you see certain actors that you know are considered washed up, TV movie or straight to video movie actors etc., when you even see chicks such as Shannon Tweed etc. you know you are about to watch a b-film.lol

Yet another attempt to remake Dean Koontz's novel into a feature length film is yet another failure. This so called sequel adds some elements of Predator into another tired entry lacking in decent special effects and suspense. This time around a group of soldiers fall prey to a monster that is linked to a super intelligent dog and kills off everyone in its way. Rated R; Violence.