Watchers Reborn

As expected.

replace vhs

The movie was entertaining, but did not resemble the book very closely. Maybe budgets were insufficient when the movie was made.

I have all the Watchers movies. Can watch them all 24/7. I love the actors Mark Hamill and Gary Collins.

You know what you never realize as a kid? As bad of a director as George Lucas can be, he’s one of the few people able to reign in the hammy tendencies of Mark Hamill, who plays a detective in this one who has just lost his wife and son to a fire that was probably caused by a mutant because that’s how it goes.Lisa Wilcox, Alice from A Nightmare On Elm Street 4 and 5, plays the scientist who introduces him to a golden retriever, this time named Alex and being not as smart as he was the last time, only having an IQ of 140. This one also has a pit bull and the man who ruined Night Gallery in syndication, Gary Collins, so you know that my heart is on the side of the animals and not the humans. I’m also on the side of all murderous mutants, because as Emily Dickinson wrote, “The heart wants what it wants, or else it does not care,” and we’ve gone about proving this inscrutable wisdom true ever since.”Low Rawls — yes, the man who sang “You’ll Never Find Another Love like Mine” — has a cameo as a coroner, so if you ever get asked, “What do Lucio Fulci and Lou Rawls have in common?” and a gun is at your temple, I have provided you with the knowledge that will save your life.Director John Carl Buechler ran Corman’s special effects team for some time before directing movies like Demonwarp, Cellar Dweller and Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood.

Detective Jack Murphy (Mark Hamill) and his partner Gus Brody (Gary Collins) are called to a murder scene at the zoo. While investigating Murphy finds a golden retriever. His partner takes the dog home. The dog, named Einstein, is part of a government experiment. He is psychically linked to a monster named The Outsider. They are part of a team designed to infiltrate enemy lines. The dog is the tracker and the The Outsider is the killer.An incident at the lab released the dog and the monster from the confines of the lab and out into the world. While at Gus’s home, The Outsider breaks in and brutally kills Gus. The NSA takes over and Murphy is sent home. Einstein hides in Murphy’s car. Murphy finds out that the dog is highly intelligent. He contacts a woman zoologist he met at the zoo crime scene named Grace Hudson (Lisa Wilcox). He finds out that she is aware of Einstein and The Outsider. She created them.NSA agents led by Lem Johnson (Stephen Macht) are trying to erase all traces of both The Outsider and the dog. Johnson is willing to do whatever is necessary to accomplish his ends. Anyone who has been in contact with the monster and lives is exterminated. His next step is to track down the dog and the monster and kill them both. To do that he needs to find Grace. He believes that if he finds her, he will find the dog. Now not only do Murphy and Grace have to handle The Outsider but the NSA as well. “Watchers Reborn” AKA “Watchers IV” was released in 1998 and was directed by John Carl Buechler. Co-produced by Mark Hamill, this is the fourth Roger Corman production loosely based on the Dean Koontz novel “Watchers”. After three movies that had very little to do with the book, if you expected anything different from movie number four you are naive. Not only does it not follow the book, it also does not follow any of the other movies. Granted some of the footage from previous movies have been, shall we say, repurposed but there is no direct connection between any of them other than the dog and the monster and their psychic link.Roger Corman has never met a genetically engineered freak he didn’t like. This time The Outsider looks like a werewolf. This one is also the goriest of the franchise. Again this movie went straight to video. Is the movie any good? Probably not, but it’s got a really cute dog. I couldn’t find out the name of the dog. It’s not listed anywhere that I looked, but there are several trainers listed in the cast so I suspect there were several dogs used. For a Roger Corman movie it was entertaining. If you like smart golden retrievers or if you’re a completist and you have “Watchers” one through three then you need this one to round everything out.As for Mark Hamill, do not expect Luke Skywalker. By the time Watchers IV was made he was 47. (He was only 26 when Star Wars IV was made.) He plays a down trodden police detective that lost his wife and child in a fire 4 years previously and is still haunted by it. And unfortunately he looks the part. I’m not sure how much of his character is acting and how much is just the ravages of time.Don Imus’s (from Imus in the morning) wife Deirdre Coleman Imus has a small part as a reporter in the movie.

I considered using my standard Roger Corman introductory paragraph with "Watchers Reborn," since the House of Corman is the guiding force behind the increasingly banal Watchers films (this one is the third and final sequel), but I'm not going to take the easy way out. Instead, I want to elaborate on the Law of Diminishing Returns as it applies to movie sequels. Everyone acknowledges this law exists even if they don't overtly recognize it. As someone who's spent a great amount of time watching junk, I live and die by this law. I suspect the person responsible for first articulating this principle must have used the Watchers series as the its foundational basis. I can't think of any series of films, including the "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" movies, which better fits the mold. A substandard, albeit entertaining, original film (based on a Dean Koontz novel of the same name) first hit movie screens back in the 1980s. It was a pretty decent b-movie extravaganza starring Michael Ironside and Corey Haim. As Louis XV used to say, "Apres moi, le deluge". After the first film, the sequels heralded disaster. "Watchers Reborn" represents the absolute nadir of this franchise. It stinks.Once again, "Watchers Reborn" allows us to reenter the secretive world of the Outsider and his intelligent pooch partner. With the program failing miserably three previous times, you'd think the National Security Agency and Defense Department would abandon the project. Think again. Those wacky bureaucrats! They just can't give up on the idea that a genetically engineered beastie, linked psychically with a super-intelligent dog, will serve as an effective means to destroy our nation's enemies. A few thousand domestic corpses later, you'd figure they would get the idea that the program ISN'T WORKING! You'd also think the producers of this film would get the idea that the movies aren't working anymore, either. Wrong on both counts. In "Watchers Reborn," we see yet another scientist hard at work to turn the Outsider project around. This time it's Dr. Grace Hudson (Lisa Wilcox) pushing papers. She's working closely with the National Security Agency, presented to us in the form of the evil Lem Johnson (Stephen Macht), to make this sucker work. We know it won't work, of course, because if it did there wouldn't be much of a movie with which to waste our time. Sure enough, Einstein the super dog escapes from captivity, closely followed by the Outsider.At this point, enter Los Angeles Police Detective Murphy (Luke Skywalker) and his partner Gus Brody (Gary Collins!). They move center stage while investigating an especially heinous murder caused either by A) a psycho with a really huge pair of gardening shears, or B) the Outsider. Wanna take a stab at the correct answer? Anyone? Bueller? Anyway, it's extremely telling that Einstein shows up at the crime scene. One thing leads to another, which includes Officer Brody's demise at the hands (paws?) of the Outsider. Detective Murphy must join forces with Dr. Hudson, Einstein, and The Force in an effort to expose this nefarious plot. The movie treats us to numerous scenes involving Einstein and Corey Haim...er, I mean Einstein and Marc Singer...darn it...I mean Einstein and Detective Murphy as the human figures out that Einstein is not some dumb dog but rather an intelligent canine involved in some secret project. It's the same stuff we've seen in the previous movies, only done with a lot less flair. The movie plods along until Hudson (now channeling Hansel and Gretel), Einstein, Murphy, and the Outsider battle the NSA pukes at some rural farmhouse.Here are a few things I noticed about "Watchers Reborn". One, why is the lab containing the Outsider experiment located near Los Angeles? We've seen time and time again that this program poses a significant security risk to human beings, yet the government conducts the experiments right near a major metropolitan area teeming with potential victims along with a big media apparatus that would just love to break a story about a secretive genetics experiment involving animals. I'm surprised the lab isn't right next door to PETA headquarters. Two, Mark Hamill's career really went south after the "Star Wars" films. Most of us know this, of course, but "Watchers Reborn" really brings this fact home in an unpleasant manner. Hamill looks like a hangover in a suit as he lurches his way through this movie. Ouch. Three, the Outsider looks really cheesy. His look has deteriorated as the series progressed, but he's downright laughable in this outing. Four, "Watchers Reborn" proves, as if any additional evidence was necessary at this point, that Hollywood considers white guys in suits an evil hated by all forms of creation. The only thing missing here is an evil, greedy businessman. Five, and finally, the oranges. Pay attention to the oranges.The House of Corman brings "Watchers Reborn" to DVD with lackluster results. Corman's always been one to work on the cheap, and his DVDs are no different. We see the movie in a full screen format with average audio quality. The only extras are three trailers for other Corman films: "When Eagles Strike," "Hope Ranch," and A Woman Hunted". I'm proud to say that I survived all of the Watchers films. I reviewed the first two all the way back in September 2004, almost three years ago, and now I'm done. What will I do with my time? I guess I can start working my way through all of those "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween" films. I suppose I could read the Koontz book that gave birth to these monstrosities. I could even rewatch the Watchers films even though only the first two really merit any serious attention. Nah! On to the next crop of cheap, cheesy, flicks that only a bad movie lover can love!