‘The Watchers’ Writer/Director Ishana Shyamalan Is Creating Her Own Lane Despite Her Famous Last Name!

At just 24-years-old Ishana Shyamalan is carving out her own lane in the horror/suspense genre with her film ‘The Watchers.’

Source: Jonathan Hession / Warner Bros. Pictures

Global Grind Sr. Content Director Janeé Bolden caught up with the NYU Tisch School of the Arts graduate in Los Angeles ahead of the film’s release to discuss writing and directing her debut feature film, after previously working with her father M. Night Shyamalan writing and directing on Apple TV’s Servant . Among the youngest-ever series writer/directors, beginning at age 19, Shyamalan wrote or co-wrote ten episodes and directed six, including two season finales. She also directed second unit on Shyamalan’s hit features Old and Knock at the Cabin . Don’t call her nepo baby okay!

Ishana Shyamalan Adds To Family’s Horror Film Legacy With ‘The Watchers’

While M. Night Shyamalan serves as a producer on The Watchers , we were dying to ask Ishana about her first go in the drivers seat directing her first feature.

“It’s a really interesting thing,” Ishana Shyamalan told Global Grind . “It’s not something I ever really thought about until this moment in life and I’m kind of trying to create my own artistic space but ultimately I think it’s been a really healthy, like wonderful thing, and it’s just my hope that the work speaks for itself and people can enjoy it for what it is.”

Source: Jonathan Hession / Warner Bros. Pictures

The Watchers is about a young woman named Mina (Dakota Fanning) who is traveling through Ireland and gets caught in the middle of a forest. There, she meets three other people also trapped in the forest and learns that they are visited by creatures every single night who watch them through a window inside “the coop,” an enclosure where they shelter every night. From the very start Mina is curious about just what these creatures are who watch them, that mystery really creates the terror you feel viewing the film.

Ishana Shyamalan Talks About Amping Up The Fear Factor With Unknown Elements

“I think particularly in the film format, that for me I sort of operate under this belief that yeah your imagination is always scarier than anything you could possibly see,” Ishana Shyamalan told Global Grind. “That is where fear comes from in life. I think is us sort of envisioning different things and starting to spin out in that way. So it was really interested to play with that kind of psychological element through the movie.”

The Watchers is a very unique kind of horror film, because it’s so visually stunning — truly a credit to Ishana Shyamalan’s vision.

“The visual element of it is like truly my favorite part of the process,” Ishana Shyamalan told Global Grind. “I think that’s what I get most excited about is playing with colors and sort of putting together sets and thinking about that, so it was like the thing I started with way, way before anything else comes together. That was really the element I was excited about locking down first and I think for me it’s just like operating under, I think I love being in spaces that I think are kind of like baroque and big and beautiful and it was really a means to sort of bring that to the screen, that every frame has something beautiful to look at.”

The Watchers is in theatres Friday, June 7. The film also stars Georgina Campbell (“Barbarian,” “Suspicion”), Oliver Finnegan (“Creeped Out,” “Outlander”) and Olwen Fouéré (“The Northman,” “The Tourist”).