The Watchers may mark Ishana Shyamalan’s feature directorial debut, but she’s got far more experience than most at her age because she’s been surrounded by film her entire life. Ishana Shyamalan is M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter, and grew up on his sets. Then, beginning at 19, she wrote on the Apple TV+ series Servant, and went on to direct six episodes of the show. On top of that, she directed second unit on both Old and Knock at the Cabin. All wonderful opportunities, but all projects where a top priority was fulfilling a preestablished vision. That wasn’t the case on The Watchers, however.

Based on the A.M. Shine novel of the same name, The Watchers stars Dakota Fanning as Mina. While in the midst of a lengthy drive through the forest in western Ireland, Mina gets stranded. While she manages to find shelter with three strangers, it’s far from a safe situation. The four must be in “the coop” by nightfall, or else. Once inside, they can’t see out into the forest, but something can see it — mysterious creatures who stalk them throughout the night.

With The Watchers now playing in theaters nationwide, I sat down with Shyamalan to discuss her experience going from second unit director to directing her very own feature film. She walked me through lessons learned while working on Old, her priorities when finding her own voice on set, and how she figured out how much to show of her creatures throughout the film. You can hear it all straight from Shyamalan herself in the video at the top of this article, or you can read the conversation in transcript form below.  

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