It Waits (2005)

Credits / Details

43%
Overall Rating

Ranked #7,156
...out of 20,690 movies

Genres: Creature Film Horror

"It Waits" is a suspenseful, horrifying tale of a Native American legend come to life. A creature trapped in the bowels of hell has been awoken and unleashed on the world. It prowls the wilderness, hunting a young, willful ranger named Danielle. Danielle is experiencing her own personal turmoil, having recently been responsible for the death of her best friend. Things go from bad to worse as Danielle realizes that she is not alone in the wilderness. There is a creature slowly stalking and hunting her. The creature claims the lives of the few people that may have been able to help Danielle, and all hope seems lost. She waits as the creature comes for here and desperately struggles for her life, but will her struggle be enough to ensure her survival? --IMDb

Review by Chad
Added: June 5, 2006

Sometimes, the best sources for horror are legends and mythology. While watching a monster wreak havoc on a group of fresh-faced teenagers is entertaining, watching a movie and knowing that people actually believed in this creature at some point in time (or still do) just adds a little icing on the cake. Tonight's film takes that idea and runs with it; the It in question is based on an old Indian legend concerning the demonic offspring from a full-fledged demon and a human female. While I'm not up on my Native American history and therefore don't know a whole lot about the legend itself, I will say that the creature found in this movie was pretty damned neat.

Danny St. Claire (Cerina Vincent) is the poor lady who gets the "privilege" of meeting up with the monster in tonight's movie. She's a ranger stationed out in the middle of the forest all by her lonesome, with only her pet parrot and a bottle of vodka to keep her company. You see, Danny has been downing the booze a lot lately thanks to having recently been involved in a car accident that killed her best friend... and by "involved", I mean, she was drunk and she was driving. I suppose that anything can be forgiven in horror these days, as the director tries his damnedest to paint this poor lady as the sympathetic "victim", but hey - it's just a movie, right? So then, we get to watch her cry and boo-hoo to her boyfriend Justin (Dominic Zamprogna), a fellow ranger who just happens to show up in her time of need, in a series of scenes that really tempted me to hit the fast-forward button on the remote. Finally, at about an hour in, the creature makes itself known and we get to watch Danny run around and attempt to fend off the beast.

Before getting into the negatives behind this film, I thought that it'd be best to point out the positives. The creature itself was badass; save for a few brief scenes, it was all handled with a guy in a suit as opposed to being a CGI production. It's sad, but that's becoming a lost art these days, and it's movies like this that make me wonder why. What you see on the cover of the DVD is what you see in the actual movie, so unlike in a lot of other direct-to-video releases, you can judge this one by the cover.

The creature looks good and all, but it's also neat thanks to how it interacts with our heroine. Unlike most movie monsters, this one isn't content to just mindlessly slaughter everyone that it comes across; no sir, this particular critter enjoys torturing its prey not unlike a cat would a mouse. However, I don't think that a cat would have the intelligence to set up a pile of little mouse bodies in the home of said mouse just to repulse and shock the little rodent, and that's the kind of thing that sets this monster apart. A definite thumbs up on the monster side of the film, no question.

Now, the negatives. The first one would be the choice of music for the film. Sure, this is a wee bit minor with all things considered, but it was the thing that bugged me the most as the movie trudged along. When I think of a horror film such as this, I think of a nice, brooding score to heighten the tension, or maybe a heavy metal soundtrack if it's geared towards the mall-going public. What we have here is the director's wife performing music that would sound much more at home on the latest drama from the Lifetime network or on the second stage at the Lilith Fair. The lady sounds good and has a beautiful voice, but the music was completely out of place in this film. Steve, my good man: I can respect you wanting to help out your wife and all, but don't try this again unless you're shooting something more appropriate for her talents.

The other thing that bugged me about this movie was the whole "remorse over an accident" theme and the love affair between Danny and Justin. I believe in some character development even in a movie like this, don't get me wrong; however, both of these went nowhere and did nothing but pad out the running time and give the creature another victim (respectively). Then we have the love scene that comes out of nowhere and seems to be included just because someone higher up required it from the director. Danny is telling her boyfriend about how she was responsible for the death of her best friend, the tears are flowing, and then... they're in the bed getting it on (and no, we don't get to see Cerina Vincent's massive hooters). Words probably won't do it much justice, but trust me when I say that the transition is awkward at best.

Overall, it's an average film. The monster is great and, as it should be, is the true highlight of the film. We also get a couple of nice death scenes, or rather, post-death scenes. We don't get to see a whole lot of actual on-screen violence, but we do get to see some rather unique uses of the corpses by our playful monster, and these scenes were very well done. However, there's a lot of padding to get through in order to get to the meat of the movie, and watching a mediocre-at-best actress carry the movie almost entirely by herself (on the human side of things) is rather painful. Give it a rental if monster movies are your thing, but don't expect anything outstanding. 4/10.

#1: Crispy - added February 19, 2012 at 2:19am
I really enjoyed this, save for that inevitable "Native American guy who has to explain it all". And as for Cerina Vincent's massive hooters, she literally spends her entire role in Not Another Teen Movie naked. Of course, nothing is worth actually having that movie, but there it is.

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