Thanks for the memories!

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

When a family moves to a country home, the young girls experience strange happenings that have a link to an occult event years past.I wasn't really aware of this film until Rue Morgue magazine did a focus on it. And wow, it really deserves a wider audience. John Hough is a great director; his "Hell House" is one of my all-time favorites. Here, working more in a family-friendly way, he still manages to terrify.Although the older sister is a terrible actress, at least when she is trying to be emotional, the movie as a whole stands up as creepy and a decent mystery. You can never go wrong with those films where kids know more about what is going on than their parents do.

So this one is not that scary... It's more mystery and family and it's made by Disney so this can be watched by anyone... Mostly... So story is about family that moved to a county home and they suddenly experience some strange happenings(or you can call it paranormal). Story follows mostly two sisters(Jan and Ellie) while their parents are not big part of the whole story... So after some time they stumble across Mrs. Aylwood who is typical character(antagonist) that everybody should be scared of... But she is not... Jan suddenly realize what is that but then latter she connect that with Mrs. Aylwood... But lets just stop there and talk about acting a bit. So their performances are average i think that there are few scenes where they act like really out of place so different and better... Even when movie introduces you to other characters(Mary,Tom,John) they still act average... But move came out 1980 and feels so much like movie from 1970s(but that makes sense)... So lets continue with the story... Jan finds out what happened to her daughter and tries to convict them to perform ritual again! They had their secret society! After whole that trouble between and before they finally performed ritual and Mrs. Aylwood's daughter is back and that is the end! Well there is not that much of the watcher in the woods its just that format and you constantly have that camera angle from woods and places that should convict you that something is watching you! it works but after sometime it gets boring with... So here it is The watcher in the woods!!! You should watch it! It's experience on its own!

Florence Engel Randall's book "A Watcher in the Woods" becomes abysmal, dumbed-down entry in Grand Guignol territory by the Disney people, an unusually bland ghost story offering special effects galore but nobody to care about. Young girl's spirit haunts an isolated manor, with Bette Davis doing just-OK work as a spooky neighbor who helps the new residents unravel the mystery. Supporting players Carroll Baker and Lynn-Holly Johnson are acceptable, but the film's major set-pieces, designed for chills, fail to come off due to pedestrian handling. This is a thriller made by people who don't understand the genre, although the production values are up to Disney's high standards. Film is hurt overall by post-production tinkering; the finale, reworked twice due to poor audience reactions, is simply unsatisfactory. *1/2 from ****

i saw this only once when i was a kid. i vaguely remembered it, all i remember is a girl with a blindfold and a church. so many years later, my mom saw this on DVD and picked it up, thinking we might enjoy it. we had recently seen "something wicked this way comes", another movie i vaguely remembered as a child, which was really scary and excellent film, especially for Disney, and was very dark, and we thought "watcher" would be in the same vein as "wicked", since they were only made a few years apart. but it was definitely not. it was far worse! the ending with the "alien" thing or whatever, and some explanation of an "aternate reality" totally killed it for me. holly Lynn Johnson, though definitely a cutie, was REALLY bad acting. like, annoyingly bad. the story seemed to take forever to pick up, i didn't understand. Davis was not very good either. nothing stood out. i was especially disappointed that it wasn't a "ghost story" in the end, but some kinda scifi plot with switching the bodies back and forth because of some kind of weird chant the kids did in the chapel. didn't get it at all, and it got WAY too scifi. i thought the whole time it would be something supernatural. just lame. something wicked this way comes which came out a few years later was FAR Superior, genuinely scary, great acting, and just all around a better film from Disney studios.