When a normal American family move into a beautiful old English house in a wooded area, strange, paranormal appearances befall them. Their daughter Jan sees, and daughter Ellie hears, the voice of a young teenage girl who mysteriously disappeared during a total solar eclipse decades before.....The early eighties saw Disney go through a dark period with their live action films. Now, there are two kinds of dark. There is Condorman dark, and if you've see that abomination, you'll know the dark I'm referring to. And then there is the blatant darkness of Something Wicked This Way Comes, and this little curiosity piece that went into the abyss for a few years, before being released in eighty one.And it's easy to see why Disney had so many problems with its release. Firstly, it's not very scary, we just see a lot of blue lights flashing. And secondly, Davis aside, it's not very good either.We get the majority of the film with the girl from For Your Eyes Only, and one of those putrid housewives of Beverly somewhere, either listening or hearing strange things.Add a strange Wicker Man vibe to the locals, and you have this strange hodge podge of a film, too sinister for children, too silly for adults.So it's only worth watching to see Davis in a role where she does nothing else but think about paying her bills.It's not terrible, it looks good, and the house and the fun fair scene are quite creepy, but it's not surprising that the film is very difficult to find.

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!

It's a pretty hard movie to rate. Since it's from Disney I was prepared that it would not be too scary and it was going to have a happy ending. Indeed that proved to be the case. The story was simple but interesting enough to hold my attention for the whole duration. The problem however is that the actions become rather repetitive. It is always the eldest sister Jan who gets to see images from the girl that got lost 30 years ago after what seemed an innocent game. And it's her youngest sister Ellie that acts as some kind of medium giving Jan hints about what to do. So yeah that starts about 10 minutes in and continues for over an hour. Along the way we meet a few other characters but it all remains vague. Also the ending left me with an empty feeling, wondering what that entity was and where the lost girl had been all this time. Where was it and what did it do on earth and why did it come here in the first place? I thought the acting from anyone was rather wooden as if they were going through the motions. It's not that Lynn-Holly Johnson didn't try but there was little given to make something decent from it. Too bad a great actress like Bette Davis had so little to do.

I watched this movie because it had Bette Davis in it. Her part is very small. As for the movie overall, the acting is bad and the script is worse. This was certainly a low point for Disney. I rented this movie from Netflix and the first disc was damaged and would not play. I should have let it go at that, but I ordered another disc. I would not waste your time watching this movie. Oh, I suppose if I were ten again and watching it when it came out in 1980 maybe I would have liked it, but I seriously doubt it. They are few times when I jumped at some cheap bangs and such, but that was closest that I came to actually being scared. The cover of the box was well down though! LOL