Sorry, this movie sucks

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

After watching "Watchers", I read that it bears only the loosest connection to the novel on which it's based (kind of like how "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" bears only the loosest connection to "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?"). Overall, the movie is pretty much a typical '80s horror flick. It's too bad that Corey Haim died having never branched his career out.And yes, I had just learned of Steve Jobs's death when I watched the movie, and the scene of the computer class shows a bunch of early Macs. I always -- or should I say, iAlways -- thought it really cool that Steve Jobs named his company after the Beatles' record company.

I'm often very glad that I'm not much of a reader. Quite often when I encounter a movie-adaptation of a (famous) novel, there are always hundreds of people complaining about how awful the movie version was in comparison to the book. Well, I've never – and probably will never – read the book, so at least I don't have to feel ashamed about tremendously liking the film! It's like I don't know any better, you dig? This is also the case with "Watchers", for example. Allegedly, the Dean Koontz novel differs enormously from the 80's horror film version, with characters and story lines altered left and right in favor to appeal more to contemporary horror loving audiences. Travis, the lead character, is originally a 40-year-old social outcast in the book, whereas he's a poignant 16-year-old rebel kid in the film, portrayed by Corey Haim who was quite big at the time thanks to the success of "The Lost Boys", "Lucas" and "Silver Bullet". That's the 80's horror film industry for you. Can you blame them? Either way, "Watchers" is a shamelessly entertaining and virulent late 80's creature-feature with a pleasingly high body count, gruesome special effects, an irresistible charming 80's setting and ambiance, cool acting performances and one of the best use of an intelligent dog in a film ever. Travis Cornell lives, with his yummy mother, nearby a research facility where the government – in all secrecy of course – works on the ultimate warfare weapon. The weapon itself is a giant and nearly indestructible Bigfoot creature, but the breakthrough is that it is telepathically linked to a intelligent dog. The monster is programmed to track the animal down and kill everything on its path in between. The dog and the monster escape from the lab just before there's an explosion. The dog hitches a ride in Travis' truck and he decides to keep the animal when he notices its abnormally high intellect. The dog can type warnings on a computer and compose messages via a game of scrabble, for crying out loud! Meanwhile, the Oxcom monster leaves a trail of blood and mayhem throughout the area, and if that isn't worse enough yet, there's also the relentless government agent Michael Ironside. He's after Travis and his dog to cover up the failures. "Watchers" is fast-paced and exciting, with massacres that are delightfully gruesome. The Oxcom monster has the nasty habit of removing people's eyeballs, which leads to a handful of grisly images and eerie make-up effects. The acting performances are great. Barbara Williams is excellent as Travis' caring mother and Michael Ironside behaves psychopathic and nightmarish as always. Corey Haim uses his typical 'rebellious 80's teenager' charisma to maximum results and the dog – Fur Face – is genius. Oh, "Watchers" also provides the opportunity to admire hunky boy Jason Priestley and watch him get slaughtered by Bigfoot before he became world famous as Brandon Walsh in "Beverly Hills 90210". Splendid 80's nostalgia!

Watchers (1988) ** (out of 4) Apparently we shouldn't trust any government agencies. Out in the middle of nowhere the government is trying to create superhuman creatures that they can use for war. Two creatures are created one being a Golden Retriever who has been taught pretty much everything a human can do. This includes answering questions, being able to type and best of all he can retrieve his own food. The second creature is a Bigfoot type creature known as an Oxcom. The secret is that the dog would go into the enemy's camp to find targets then the Oxcom would follow and kill whatever is by the dog.However another government agencies tries to destroy this project and blows up the building where the two are being held but neither are killed and they both head off into the woods. The dog has the advantage but the Oxcom is close behind and ready to kill whoever the dog goes near. The dog eventually ends up with 16-year-old Travis (Corey Haim) who takes a liking to the animal and also understands how smart it is. While all of this is going on the Oxcom is stalking and killing people all over the county. Meanwhile the government agents, head by Michael Ironside, shows up to track the creatures down.Watchers is based on the novel by Dean Koontz but I haven't read it so I'm not sure how close the movie follows things. The executive producer was Roger Corman so that there should tell you what type of film this is going to be. If you've seen any of the low-budget drive-in shockers from the 1950's then you've pretty much seen this film. This film plays out exactly like all the others, although this here does have a few good aspects but there isn't enough to make the film worth watching.The biggest problem is that the film is simply too cute to really be a horror film. The dog in the film is so darn lovable that you really can't take your eyes off of him and the scenes between him and Haim seem like something you'd see in a Disney film and not a gory horror movie. I'm actually a fan of Haim but he's also a problem here due to the rather silly performance. Most of the time he's trying to act tough but it comes off laughable especially the silly ending, which seems like something Rambo should be doing.As I mentioned earlier this film plays out just like the monster movies from the 1950's and this is a problem. The director uses Corman's trick of not showing the monster too much throughout the film, which is fine if the movie runs a little over an hour but coming in at 92-minutes the film simply runs out of steam very early making the rest of the film drag along without anything interesting happening. The story is laughable and not too believable but this could have been overlooked had the viewer ever feared the actual creature. That's not the case so there's very little here except for the cute dog.

I couldn't agree more. The book is one of Dean Koontz's best novels and this film is a total travesty. I watched about half of it then threw the tape in the bin in disgust! I have NO idea what the idiotic director was thinking making this piece of crap but I would rather poke my eyes out with a sharp stick than watch this useless movie again! Everything about this film is just wrong. First the main character is changed from an ex marine to a high school KID. WHY??? Second the love of his life in the book becomes his mother in the movie! hem I bet Freud would have something to say about that! LOL. The dog is cute enough and the best thing in the movie and completely outcast everyone else! Also a main character who helps them in the book betrays them in the movie. There really is nothing good to say about the film except that at least it's relatively short at an hour and a half or so. If anyone hasn't seen the film yet do yourselves a favour! READ THE BOOK! It is so much better than this worthless waste of time!