Man, Roger Corman certainly got his moneys worth out of the film rights to the Dean Koontz novel WATCHERS. This, the fourth entry in the series, continues the saga of Einstein the Golden Retriever and his mutant buddy/stalker The Outsider. The Outsider breaks out of a Government facility where he and Einstein are being tested on. The duo are on the loose and The Outsider kills off a zoo security guard. Det. Murphy (Mark Hamill) is on the case and quickly discovers the dog and scientist Grace (Lisa Wilcox) snooping around. The mean Feds (led by Stephen Macht) are also on the case and want to kill everyone associated with the project to keep it hush-hush. Naturally, that means kill them in public.Despite an offer of new ideas (REBORN), this is the same ol' WATCHERS. Man finds dog. Dog is smart. Monster chases dog. Dog saves lives. The end. And what does it say about a film when the best actor is a dog? I'm not kidding. Einstein, who gets no screen credit, displays better emotions than Hamill ever does. Director John Carl Buechler keeps things moving fast enough and the kills are all gory so I guess it has that going for it. The end tries to go for a sympathetic Frankenstein's monster twist but it isn't working when your monster looks this bad. "Pet me," he cries at one point to great comic effect. Wilcox, who played Alice in ELM STREET 4 & 5, sports blonde hair in this and looks like a dead ringer for Barbara Campton. As always, Macht gives a solid turn as the heel. He must be filed in all Hollywood Rolodexes under "Bad Guy."

I don't think any of what I wrote qualifies as a "spoiler", but I don't want to get blacklisted, so I checked the "spoiler" box. Watchers is my all-time favorite book. When I found out they had done a "blockbuster" movie based on the book, I went out and rented it. About 5 minutes into the movie I turned it off. Then I put it back on and watched it. The only plus about any and all of these movies is the dogs they use. They are very well trained animals (I wonder how many dogs they used in total!) and they are gorgeous. The outsider in every one of the movies is lame, nothing like the book (and I know, if they tried to make it like the book says they would have to spend a lot of money and it still wouldn't be up to par to Koontz's imagination) but at least make him like the 3rd movie, more reptilian looking with big claws (that don't dangle!).Anyways, if I won the lottery I would hire a team to make a mini-series (maybe for the sci-fi channel?) based WORD BY WORD on the book. The way Einstein and Travis meet, all of the k-9 human interactions; the way they meet Nora, the entire book and how it flows compared to any of the movies is just.. sad and pathetic.So, I wish I won the lottery....

Watchers Reborn starts in a science lab where Dr. Grace Hudson (Lisa Wilcox) has been experimenting with DNA to create a mutated monster known as the 'Outsider' & a super intelligent Golden Retriever named Einstein who are telepathically linked to each other. Since everyone likes Einstein & give him pats on the head, they talk to him nicely & spoil him with lots of dog biscuits the Outsider becomes jealous & resentful of him. The Outsider manages to escape in an attempt to kill Einstein but the clever little fella he is Einstein manages to crawl through an air vent & to the safety of Los Angeles outside the lab, however the Outsider is still on his tail (Ha!). Homicide Detectives Murphy (Mark Hamil) & his partner Gus (Gary Collins) are called to a murder & discover a horribly mutilated security guard together with Einstein, Murphy takes a liking to Einstein & decides to take him to the pound (!). Gus isn't having any of it & takes Einstein home with him but is soon killed by the Outsider in it's relentless search for Einstein, as Murphy investigates he becomes aware of the truth & a target of NSA agents who want to keep the whole thing quiet...Directed by John Carl Buechler who also is credited with the special creature effects Watchers Reborn is the fourth entry in the Watchers series of films & to date the last. The script by Sean Dash is based on the novel by Dean R. Koontz but I'm not sure how closely. The film moves along at a fair pace, it drags a little in the middle but it passed the time well enough & just about enough happened to maintain my interest. Watchers Reborn isn't exactly the best film ever made that's for sure but if your expectations aren't too high & you like cheap horror films you could do a lot worse. Watchers Reborn features telepathic monsters, shadowy Government agencies, DNA experiments, a trial of Oranges, a Golden Retriever who appears to be more intelligent than half the people I know (& he can write better too) & the one & only Luke Skywalker. What more do you want? I've seen better but I've also seen worse.Special effects man turned director Buechler does an OK job, the film isn't much to look at but then what did you expect? I've noticed that the Outsider in each Watchers film looks completely different to the one in the previous entry, this time the Outsider looks more like a Werewolf & in certain shots like a Gorilla, overall it's a pretty cheap looking monster suit. There's some reasonable gore, someone has their eye pulled out, there are plenty of spilled guts & blood, severed hands & arms. The action scenes are dumb & not that exciting, it's not scary & I don't get why the Outsider never kills Murphy? The Outsider kills everyone else he meets but not Murphy it just hits him & knocks him out, answers on a postcard please.Technically Watchers Reborn is pretty cheap looking, it's OK but that's about the best I can say about it. The acting isn't up to much & what the Hell happened to Mark Hamil after Star Wars (1977)? How did he end up in something like this?Watchers Reborn is an OK time waster, it'll pass 90 odd minutes but little else. The other Watchers films are Watchers (1988), Watchers II (1990) & Watchers III (1994) which I personally think is the best of the bunch even though that ain't saying much.

A terrible movie here, folks. First of all, it's hard to review this film objectively. I REALLY enjoyed the book (one of my favourite Dean Koontz novels), and I'm way too much of a Mark Hamill fan (regardless of what everybody tells me). But this was a uniquely weak film. I've mentioned before that films with the potential for good/greatness are much more disappointing than those that were empty from the beginning. This is, what, the tenth attempt to make Koontz's "Watchers" into a movie, and again, somebody somewhere screwed up. I mean, what is the problem with this book? I can't tell you, except that even after several other tries, this one is particularly bad. The acting was sub-par, the violence hokey and unnecessary, the special effects laughable, and the editing was as bad as a sixth-grader with two VCRs. There were a couple of moments when I thought, "Wait a minute, maybe this won't suck," which made it all the worse when it did. "Nightmare on Elm Street 4 & 5"'s Lisa Wilcox wasn't spectacularly awful, just awful. The pathetic-but-didn't-have-to-be monster was never scary, and often so poorly done that I longed for another Ewok movie. I guess the once-great Mark Hamill should stick with cartoon voice-overs.