watchers reborn ( 1998 ) a film review by justin felix . copyright 1999 justin felix . all of my film reviews are archived at <a href= " http : //us . imdb . com/m/reviews_by ? justin + felix " >http : //us . imdb . com/m/reviews_by ? justin + felix</a> this review also appears in the shrubbery at <a href= " http : //www . theshrubbery . prohosting . com/0299/movie3 . html " >http : //www . theshrubbery . prohosting . com/0299/movie3 . html</a> screenplay by sean dash . based upon the novel watchers by dean koontz . directed by john carl buechler . starring mark hamill , lou rawls , kane hodder , lisa wilcox . rated r ( contains violence and profanity ) 83 mins . synopsis : a humorless police officer's life changes when he befriends a super-smart , super-adorable golden retriever named einstein and a cute , young blond scientist . unfortunately , einstein shares a psychic link with a bigfoot-sized ape-creature trained by the blond scientist to be an unstoppable killing machine , and this rogaine-nightmare is loose and after the dog and the girl . meanwhile , a group of white , chain-smoking , gun-toting nsa agents in sunglasses and business suits tries to kill all the other characters in the movie . comments : watchers reborn , a cheaply made direct-to-video turkey , is the fourth sequel to the first film version of dean koontz's bestselling novel watchers . technically , this should have been called watchers v , but it seems that this cycle of horror movies , much like many other sequel-crazy film series , has decided to drop the numbers from the titles . ( even the star trek movies dropped the numbers from their titles after star trek vi . ) the makers of watchers reborn probably want to fool unsuspecting video rental customers into thinking this might be a good movie instead of a crappy fifth installment of a film series which should have died a long time ago . this really isn't a good movie . have you ever rented a movie and recieved a sinking feeling about it when you watched the previews preceding the feature presentation ? well , any hope a viewer may have had , perhaps because he is a fan of novelist dean koontz or actor mark hamill , will be dashed by the time he's seen the trailers tagged on before the beginning of watchers reborn . they're awful . these commercials cover films like a strange stripper movie called shadow dancer , some weird crap about a dead indian , teens , and wolves , and an " action " movie called detonator starring scott baio . scott baio ! what idiot dreamed this movie up ? after surviving these abysmal trailers , the person finally gets to watch the movie he rented : watchers reborn . " maybe it won't be * that * bad " he may say to himself . " perhaps , just perhaps , the bottom-of-the-barrel film fluff advertised before it is greatly misleading . watchers reborn , after all , is based on that cool book dean koontz wrote a decade ago . it stars mark hamill -- luke skywalker himself from that terrific star wars trilogy . lou rawls is even in the mix ! " unfortunately , the force is certainly no longer with mark hamill ( he looks very sick here ) , and this movie shares only basic plot elements with watchers , the book . the latter is really too bad . koontz is a hack writer producing way too many thrillers for his own good , but he is still my favorite hack writer . koontz has a writing style which is succinct and suspenseful . people who read many of his books , however , often complain of repetitive plot devices . it's definately not a koontz book if there isn't ( 1 ) a psychic , ( 2 ) a super-intelligent dog , or ( 3 ) a psychotic killer who likes ripping out people's eyeballs . watchers has all three devices , which may explain why it's arguably the most popular of koontz's books . the idea behind koontz's novel , though highly implausible , is very interesting . basically , a biological war machine is created : a smart dog can be released in battle , track down its target , and then relay the target's position , psychically , to a large creature designed to kill in hand-to-hand combat . silly but kind of neat too . i'm sorry . i don't mean to ramble on about matters not directly linked to watchers reborn , the movie . i suppose i just don't want to talk about the movie itself . this turkey is really cheesy . no one in this movie can act , including mark hamill , and it's difficult seeing the aged luke skywalker stumble around trying to be the hero . the cheese factor is only increased when he's involved in an implied sex scene with the blond biologist / geneticist / zoologist / whatever-the-f * * k-she's-supposed-to-be whom he befriends . mercifully , the filmmakers opted not to do nudity . to be honest , the only half-convincing actor in the film is the golden retriever who plays einstein . you know a movie is bad when a dog outacts all of its human counterparts . i find it difficult to relate how laughable the action sequences are in this movie . and the creature ! yes , the creature out after poor einstein is some guy in a furry suit and a mask which poorly imitates the werewolves in the howling . this creature is shot about 500 , 000 times , but it's okay . the creature has the ability to kill people by swinging his arms around and pushing . oh , he can also rip body parts off , allowing for many scenes of fake hands and arms being thrown around . cheesy gore . that's another main element of watchers reborn . it has many bloody scenes which are thoroughly unconvincing and only increase the film's campiness rather than its suspense . ultimately , i gave watchers reborn a star and a half because bad horror / sci-fi film buffs may get a few kicks out of the film's silliness ( though this film will tax even their patience -- it's an 83 minute film , but it feels like four hours ) . also , i hate to admit , i have survived far worse than this . anyone who has sat through the christopher lambert and natasha henstridge debacle known as adrenalin : fear the rush will know what i mean . finally , i couldn't help but think that watchers reborn would work well as " bot fodder " for the creative folks behind one of my all-time favorite shows , " mystery science theater 3000 . " this thought alone helped me survive watchers reborn with a smile on my face . rated r , watchers reborn contains dozens of blood-spattered bodies and unconvincing gore . it also has violence , obviously . i wouldn't recommend it for the little kids , but i'm sure even young teens would make it through this movie okay . instead of watching this film , however , i recommend reading koontz's book . trust me , it'll be time much , much better spent . 
