| Watchers Reborn | |
| Director: | John Carl Buechler |
| Producer: | Luis Llosa Roger Corman (Executive Producer) |
| Starring: | Mark Hamill Lisa Wilcox Stephen Macht |
| Distributor: | New Concorde Home Entertainment |
| Runtime: | 90 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
Watchers Reborn (also known as Watchers 4) is the 1998 sequel to the 1988 horror film Watchers. Directed by John Carl Buechler and starring Mark Hamill, the film is loosely based on the 1987 novel Watchers by Dean Koontz.
Ever since he lost his wife and son in a devastating fire, Detective Jack Murphy (Mark Hamill) has wandered around life in a fog. But he is forced to face his terrifying memories when his partner Gus is killed in a mysterious slaying. Killed in a manner too brutal to be human, too clever to be animal, the only clues to Gus's death are a vagabond golden retriever and Dr. Grace Hudson (Lisa Wilcox), the beautiful scientist who seeks him out.
Dr. Hudson tells Jack that Einstein, the dog, is actually one half of a super-secret government experiment. With an IQ of 140, the dog was designed as a tracker for a genetically engineered killing machine known as the Outsider. Jack and Grace must stop the Outsider from killing again while preventing Lem Johnson (Stephen Macht), a pitbull, and the NSA from terminating the experiment... killing everyone who has knowledge of its existence. But how do you stop a creature genetically predestined for murder?
The sequel did not receive the benefit of a theatrical release that the original did. Instead, the film went straight-to-video. The film was released on a DVD by New Concorde Home Entertainment in 2004. The film is notable in that Jason Voorhees actor Kane Hodder, who had previously worked with Buechler on , has a minor role sans make-up. Also, musical legend Lou Rawls has a minor role as the coroner.