The Watcher in the Woods

Perhaps it's best to start with the back-story on this chestnut. Some thirty or so years ago, three friends drag their friend Karen Aylwood into a chapel for an initiation into their cool kids secret society. Unbeknownst to them, one of those infrequent solar eclipses just happens to be going down, a lightening bolt hits the cathedral, and Karen disappears. Vanished… gone… see you never. Flash forward some thirty even odder years later, and the white bread Curtis family finds themselves in the market for an expansive English country rental. Karen's creepy mom (BETTE DAVIS) just happens to have such a manor, and during the awkward landlord/renter interview, she takes a shine to the eldest Curtis daughter Jan (LYNN-HOLLY JOHNSON of ICE CASTLES fame). Shortly after the Curtis clan moves in, Jan starts observing glowing lights in the woods, and the repeated pattern of triangles in the broken glass of bedroom window and one of her mom's tacky mirrors. Jan also starts seeing images of a blindfolded girl begging for her help (cough…KAREN), and declares that something is watching them from the woods, but this sort of falls on deaf ears. To make matters worse, little sister Elle (PARIS HILTON's other aunt KYLE RICHARDS), in a state of supernatural dyslexia, names her new puppy NERAK, and begins channeling the voice of the unseen watcher in the woods. Coincidentally, a solar eclipse just happens to be happening, and the action culminates when Jan convinces the three teens, now washed-up adults with trepidations, to return with her to the chapel where Karen went missing all those years ago.

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

• Any with BETTE DAVIS; she is spot-on as a bereaved mother
• Jan takes a tumble in the lake
• Elle scrawl her new puppy's name on the basement window
• The final reunion in the chapel