The Watcher in the Woods

By the 1970s, young, experimental filmmakers had turned Hollywood on its ear, and the major studios were all struggling to stay afloat. Perhaps none more than Disney, who saw a steady decline in interest in family fare throughout the decade. At the end of the '70s and early '80s, the studio started turning out a lot of really unique films, hoping to attract a wider audience (The Black Hole, Condorman, Midnight Madness, Tron, Return to Oz, Something Wicked This Way Comes, etc.). None of the films from this era garnered much mainstream success -- though most have gone on to become cult favorites -- and following 1983's Trenchcoat (which was criticized for being too adult to bear the Disney name), the studio created Touchstone Pictures as a banner to release their racy 1984 hit Splash. Although there's interesting stories connected with all of their films from this era, the one with the strangest history is unquestionably The Watcher in the Woods.

Based on the novel by Florence Engel Randall and directed by John Hough (who'd directed the original pair of Witch Mountain films), Watcher was meant to be the Disney's first big-screen horror film (though the similarly creepy Child of Glass debuted as a TV movie of the week in 1978, and "Dr. Syn: The Scarecrow of Romny Marsh" debuted on TV over a decade earlier). Unfortunately, problems abounded right from the start. The film deviated from the source novel quite a bit, and the finale of the book is pretty unfilmable -- it veers into a weird, sci-fi sequence featuring astral projection (for lack of a better term) -- so the screenplay for the film went through numerous rewrites to hone in on an appropriate, filmable ending, and principal photography began with only a rough outline of what the film's final scene would be. Casting of the leading girl came down to just a few young ladies (including Diane Lane), and the role was ultimately given to pro ice skater Lynn-Holly Johnson, who'd made a splash in 1978's Ice Castles (she should've stuck to ice skating), with supporting adult roles going to such old pros as Bette Davis, '50s/'60s sexpot Carol Baker and David McCallum (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.).

When filming finally got underway, there was tension on the set. Ron Miller, then-head of the studio, routinely butted into the production, inciting fights with producers and the director, and demanding reshoots of key scenes. Although Bette Davis was careful not to rock the boat too much, she too had her diva moments.

Post-production of the movie was rushed to get the film out in time to coincide with star Bette Davis's 50th anniversary in films. This meant that a crucial, FX-heavy sequence -- which found Lynn Holly Johnson briefly transported to another world -- couldn't be finished in time. Rather than delaying the release, the idiots at Disney just omitted this sequence and sent the movie into theatres. Initial audiences were captivated with the film up until the point where the "Other World Sequence" should have appeared -- without this scene, the ending made little sense. Despite that, it played theatres for a few weeks and then was yanked from circulation. For decades, Leonard Maltin's movie guide has stated the movie was reissued "with a special effects sequence that made things worse," though there seems to be absolutely no further info online about a release with the Other World Sequence. In any event, Disney was unhappy with the ending...

Director John Hough was in Canada filming "Incubus" when someone got the grand idea to rework the entire ending, so Disney stock director Vincent McEveety was brought in to shoot new footage. And for the most part, the new ending -- which didn't include an appearance by the titular Watcher nor the big special effects ending, worked and matched the footage shot by Hough. Unfortunately, it wasn't only the ending that got the shaft. A scary opening scene with a burning doll also got reshot, many dialogue scenes were shaved (for example, Ellie spent a considerable amount of time begging for a puppy before she got Nerak), and David McCallum and Carol Baker were cut down to the minimalist of screen-time (McCallum altogether vanishes partway through without clear explanation).

The film was re-released in 1981 with this new ending, but by this time the film's buzz had died off and it did only modest business at the box office. Weirdly, one of the scenes from the original ending appeared on the "Walt Disney and You" promo that appeared on the end of early Walt Disney home video releases.

In the late '90s, there were plans to release an extended director's cut of the film. Anchor Bay Entertainment acquired the re-release rights for several Disney classics, including "Watcher." Unfortunately, Anchor Bay embarrassed Disney by releasing a lavish edition of "The Happiest Millionaire." The house of mouse retaliated by limiting Anchor Bay's rights to their archives, virtually nullifying all extras, and limiting their access to bonus materials (which could only be released without bearing the Disney name, causing some oddball editing in the trailers/TV spots). Although director John Hough offered to fly to the USA and assemble a director's cut on his own dime, his offer was declined. Instead, Disney only allowed two rough cuts of an alternate ending to be released -- neither of which were quite the same as those that had been screened before. This was a disappointment to not only fans, but also the director and the stars (Carol Baker, in particular, expressed an interest in seeing a director's cut, since most of her big scenes were trimmed). Hough felt that the released version of the original ending featured far too much footage of the titular Watcher (which was a cheesy puppet shot in post-production). He felt if he could have control over what was seen on-screen, he could've made the original ending work -- and I'm personally inclined to agree. The original ending certainly could've worked if they'd limited the footage of the jerky puppet and included the "other world sequence."

Unfortunately, however, it didn't happen. As soon as Anchor Bay's contract was up, Disney re-released most of the films A.B. had acquired under their own banner, sans most extras. The deleted scenes appear intact on the Disney release, but John Hough's commentaries (recorded by Anchor Bay) have been omitted, along with the truncated TV spot.

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DOWNLOADS

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Script

1981 re-release Press Kit

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LINKS

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