The Watched’s Ishana Night Shyamalan reveals an unexpected Love Island influence

The Watched couldn’t be further from the villa and yet the new suspense thriller has an unexpected Love Island influence.

The new film – titled The Watchers in the US – sees artist Mina (Dakota Fanning) stranded in the Irish woods, before finding shelter with three strangers in the coop, where they are stalked by mysterious creatures every night.

In the coop, there isn’t much to do, but Mina discovers a tape of the reality TV show Lair of Love to chase away the long nights.

Talk with The digital spy, writer/director Ishana Night Shyamalan revealed that the fictional series was inspired by Love Island, which he was watching while writing the script. “I felt like it was a weird moment for me,” she recalled.

“I felt how much this experience of what I was doing voyeuristically looking through a box every day of my life and being so invested in these characters was so connected to what was happening with the four our characters from the coop.

“So it felt like such a way to ground the experience and make it feel very alive and very modern, while also commenting on the high concept of the film and the high weirdness of the film.”

While he directed episodes of Servant as well as serving as second unit director on Old and Knock at the Cabin, The Watched marked Shyamalan’s directorial debut.

For her debut, she chose to adapt AM Shine’s book The Watchers for the screen, which she described as a “preservation process”.

“I feel like someone who likes to read and watch movies, kind of a speech like, ‘Did you do the book justice?’ it was something I felt very conscious of early on,” she explained.

“Also, I think AM Shine, the author, is such an artist in his own right, I wanted to honor that. So it was very much about, like, building certain sequences or certain elements while still keeping all the structure and the ideas. which I felt were the most important in the book”.

The Watched will be released in UK cinemas on June 7.

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