Retro Movie: The Watcher in the Woods

Kyle Richards, Lynn Holly-Johnson and Bette Davis

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Walt Disney Pictures was experimenting with releasing live-action films that appealed to slightly older audiences than the ones that viewed G-rated family oriented fare like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes or The Apple Dumpling Gang. Instead, Disney offered movies such as the science-fiction epic The Black Hole, an adaptation of Ray Bradbury's classic novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, and a big-screen version of Florence Engel Randall's thriller A Watcher In The Woods. Originally released in 1980, The Watcher In The Woods had a troubled production history, which included the film being pulled from theaters shortly after it opened, having some scenes cut, and a completely new ending added before it was later re-issued. There are some fans who remember being frightened by the movie when they saw it back in the day, and its worth taking a look back at the film.

The Watcher In The Woods tells the story of the Curtis family: Paul, Helen, and their daughters Jan and Ellie, who move into a home in rural England, while Paul, a musician, works on a project. The house they're staying in is owned by Mrs. Aylwood, a woman whose daughter Karen mysteriously vanished years ago. Both Jan and Ellie begin to experience strange events, and it appears there's a supernatural presence in the house, as well as the woods nearby. Jan investigates the circumstances behind Karen's disappearance, discovering a decades old secret about the night Karen went missing. Mrs. Aylwood warns Jan not to look too deeply into the past, but she persists, working with Karen's friends to recreate the events of that fateful night, which leads to a surprising revelation about the missing girl.

The cast includes Carroll Baker, David McCallum, Ian Bannen, Kyle Richards as Ellie and Bette Davis as Mrs. Aylwood. Lynn Holly-Johnson, a former figure skater who had scored a hit with the romantic drama Ice Castles (and would later be featured in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only) stars as Jan. She gives a good performance in the role, projecting the right balance between the character's wide-eyed innocence and Nancy Drew style determination to find out the truth about what happened to Karen, but it's the veteran performers like Davis, Bannen and Baker who provide the film with some old fashioned star power. The movie has an offbeat tone and some eerie atmosphere, courtesy of director John Hough, who had previously helmed the well-received haunted house tale The Legend of Hell House.

Based on the cast and the behind the scenes personnel, it seemed like The Watcher In The Woods would be a big hit...but there was trouble afoot in these woods. The script for the film went through several revisions, with the original version penned by Brian Clemens (a veteran of the British TV series The Avengers, and films like Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter) reportedly rejected as too intense for the film's intended young adult audience. The studio hired Rosemary Anne Sisson, and later Gerry Day, to rework the screenplay. During production, Ron Miller, who was the CEO of Disney at the time, clashed with director Hough and the crew, advising them to dial back the intensity of some of the more frightening scenes in the film.

When the movie premiered in April 1980, both audiences and critics were underwhelmed by the ending of the film, which many viewers felt provided an abrupt and incomplete conclusion to the suspenseful story. The climax of the movie shown during the initial release of the film included some effects work that had been rushed in order to get it completed on time. Due to the negative response to the film, Disney actually pulled it from theaters, and had special effects wizard Harrison Ellenshaw develop a new ending. The studio also hired director Vincent McEveety to shoot several new scenes for the movie, and the eerie original opening sequence was cut from the film.

The Watcher In The Woods was re-released in October 1981, and was marketed by Disney as an intense thriller that would have you spending "ninety minutes on the edge of your seat." The new version of the film was only moderately successful, and along with other highly touted Disney productions like The Black Hole, didn't live up to the studio's box-office expectations. For many years, the movie was hard to see, as it was rarely screened on TV, and after an initial release on VHS in the 1980s, was unavailable until some recent DVD and Blu-ray re-issues. In 2017, there was a new (non-Disney) remake of the film produced for Lifetime Television, starring Anjelica Huston, and directed by Melissa Joan Hart.

Part of the problem with the film is that it's never sure whether it wants to be an old school supernatural thriller or a science-fiction tale, as the plot features elements of both genres. This is especially evident in the original ending for the film, which is available for viewing on the DVD and Blu-ray editions. I think it's an interesting movie, which is worth a look for Disney fans, as well as genre devotees who are curious about the studio's attempts to try something different when they were primarily releasing family fare in theaters. While the The Watcher In The Woods isn't available for streaming on Disney+, you can find DVD and Blu-ray releases of the film online, and there are some YouTube videos of the various endings. Here's a look at the trailer for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DFacqQp8uw.