The Watchers (2024) review

Pet shop girl Mina (Dakota Fanning), who's living in Ireland and sometimes likes to change her appearance to cruise pubs for hookups, is asked to escort a rare golden conure to a zoo in Belfast but gets lost in the woods and is "saved" by Madeline (Olwen Fouéré), who informs her that there are creatures that come out at night to "observe" human behavior through a one-way mirror and their "rules" must be strictly adhered to ... except Mina is a rebel and doesn't listen.  For her directorial debut, Ms. Shyamalan tries to make a horror-mystery similar to works by both her father and Guillermo del Toro (there's a little Pan's Labyrinth in there), but the setup is flimsy, there are too many superfluous details that don't amount to anything and the execution is underwhelming (do your best not to count the number of plot holes or illogical missteps made by the characters) ... and then it finishes up in an unimaginative manner (Mina's still "emotionally recovering" from a traumatic childhood accident she's convinced is her fault).  To its credit it does look like a professionally-crafted product, and the gaunt demons are mostly kept off-screen to try to activate the old imagination ... although next time the filmmaker should work harder to develop her own voice.