Dean Koontz—whose own website proclaims him the “International Bestselling Master of Suspense”—has sold over 450 million copies of his books, but it always seems like he’s a little behind Stephen King. I mean, that’s not a bad thing, as King was just a monolith when it came to selling books. But Koontz was successful as well; in the VHS-rental wild of the late 80s and 90s, many of his books became movies. Watchers, which is very, very loosely based on one of his books, has three sequels alone.
Other Koontz film adaptations include Demon Seed, The Passengers (based on his novel Shattered), Whispers, Servants of Twilight, Hideaway, Intensity, Mr. Murder, Phantoms, Sole Survivor, Frankenstein, Odd Thomas and Black River.
Koontz’s golden retriever, Trixie, often appeared on his book jackets, and he even wrote two books: Life Is Good: Lessons in Joyful Living and Christmas Is Good. She was a service dog that had been trained by Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), a charitable organization that provides service dogs for people with disabilities, an organization that Koontz discovered while writing his book Midnight. Over the years, he helped the group raise $2.5 million, so Trixie was their gift to him. So you can see why having a supercanine golden retriever in a story made sense to him — which is what Watchers is all about
Yes, it’s a rivalry as old as time: a golden retriever with special abilities battling the mutated monster known as the OXCOM (Outside Experimental Combat Mammal). The dog soon befriends Travis Cornell (Corey Haim) and his girlfriend Tracey (Lala Sloatman, who was dating Haim; she’s also the niece of Frank Zappa and is in Amityville: A New Generation). Of course, the government wants the dog back, so they send NSO agent Johnson (Michael Ironside).
This movie kills everyone it comes across, with either OXCOM or Johnson basically wiping out a small town, whether to kill or to keep the murders secret. Amazingly, this was originally written by Paul Haggis, who would go on to write Million Dollar Baby, Crash and yes, create Walker, Texas Ranger.
This Toy Robot release includes new interviews with director Jon Hess, Michael Ironside, Lala Sloatman and Barbara Williams, plus a trailer and stills gallery. You can get this from MVD.
