Who Watches the Watcher?

We got The Watcher in the Woods (1980) more or less by accident. It was a ways down on my queue, maybe in tenth or twelfth place. But there were some “Short Waits” above it, and some that aren’t but they just skipped over. I really like to build well-balanced 3-disc program for a weekend, but I guess I have to take what they send. Fortunately, I’ve learned to construct my queue in depth.

Anyway, this is a Disney horror movie - that is, slightly spooky for kids. Carroll Baker and David MacCallum move into a palatial British home with their two daughters, Lynn-Holly Johnson and Kyle Richards. The reason the rent is so cheap is that landlady Bette Davis (!!!) is looking for a special family, and thinks these girls, er, family will do the trick.

The girls start seeing visions and hearing things, and Johnson, the teen, falls in a lake and gets stuck under water. Davis grabs a stick and starts pushing her under, which is pretty scary, but she was just trying to push her under the roots so she can get free. She’s actually very nice.

Her secret is that she had a daughter who disappeared many years ago. She thinks the girls are sensitive to the vibrations and may be able to contact her. It turns out that three of the locals were her playmates, and may have been involved.

The atmosphere is actually quite creepy for a kid’s movie. The house has that combination of welcoming and weird that a good haunted house should have. It should be appealing so people don’t just leave when things get strange, but things should also get suitably strange. The ending, which I won’t spoil, is pretty lame, but fair.

I guess I queued this up for Bette Davis, but this isn’t really up there with her finest work, even in her later period. Then again, I’m not a special Davis fan, so I don’t mind. I just wish I’d seen this when I was 10 instead of 60.