At least the monster was scary looking!
Added 11/4/2009
lol, this movie was a hoot! The actress was the worst. Luckily, the actor who played her boyfriend, Dominic Zamprogna is so hot! He's the reason I purchased this dvd. Luckily, for him he's now on General Hospital and doesn't have to act in horrible movies like this. I think the parrot acted better than the actress.
Even the sex scene couldn't save this movie. When Dominic(Justin) gets killed, I lost all interest, but at when they finally showed the creature, at least that was pretty good. the ending was so stupid. If only the stupid woman could have thought of it before Justin was killed, maybe this movie could have been saved! lol Anyway, sorry, but I really can't recommend this movie to anyone. LIke I said I bought it because Dominic was in it.
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Combines two 1979 films -- "Alien" & "Prophecy"
Added 10/8/2009
2005's "It Waits" was directed by Steven Monroe and written by Richard Christian Matheson -- the son of famed writer Richard Matheson -- and Thomas E. Szollosi.
THE STORY: A forest ranger in the Great Northwest named Danny (Cerina Vincent) assuages her guilt & grief via alcohol while alone on the job. When her boyfriend comes to visit her in the wilderness they become increasingly aware of a creature or demonic entity that is killing off everyone in the local area and playing headgames like a cat plays with a mouse before slaying it.
It dawned on me after watching "It Waits" that it combines the plots of two 1979 films -- "Alien" and "Prophecy" (not the '95 film "The Prophecy" with Christopher Walken), both of which were out that summer. The aspects it borrows from "Alien" are obvious [BASIC PLOT SPOILER]: A tall, hideous monster kills off a group of people in an isolated setting one by one; the creature's not fully shown until the ending wherein the lone female protagonist has a showdown with it. It resembles "Prophecy" in that there's a creature on the loose in the forest killing off people (both films shot in British Columbia) and the creature is linked to a Native American legend.
Even though "It Waits" is unoriginal and has a seen-it-all-before vibe it's not all that bad for what it is.
WHAT WORKS:
- The film stars Cerina Vincent who's one of the most awe-inspiring women in God's creation. I admit she's the main reason I bought the dvd (the secondary reason is that I enjoy creatures-on-the-loose flicks). The only other film I've seen Cerina in is 2006's "Sasquatch Mountain." Both films are great if you never tire of viewing Cerina in all her curvy, full-maned glory (sorry, no nude scenes or exploitive t&a shots like, say, the dumb "Frankenfish"). Some may question the believability of such a smoking-hot babe as a ranger in the wilderness, but let me tell you a story: Last July I was primitive camping at Great Basin National Park in Nevada, which is about as desolate as you can get in the USA, and one morning I went for a solo hike in the high timber. In the area I was in I didn't see one other person the whole 2 hours except for a ranger at the trailhead checking the hiker sign-in box. This woman was gorgeous from head to toe with incredible eyes and a bright smile; on top of this she was genuinely friendly. A few days later I was visiting Craters of the Moon in Idaho and saw another ranger cutie, albeit blond. So, yeah, it's definitely true-to-life.
- The story maintains a serious tone throughout -- this is no goof-fest like "Lake Placid."
- The creature, when fully revealed in the third act, is well done and a bit reminiscent of the main gargoyle in 1972's "Gargoyles" and The Creeper in 2001's "Jeepers Creepers."
- Native American Eric Schweig has a small part as the Indian sage. Yes, it's a stereotypical, hackneyed part but it's official tradition for this type of flick (see "Prophecy," "Man-Thing," "Clawed," "Orca," "Grizzly," etc.)! Anyway, you might remember Eric from 1992's "Last of the Mohicans" and 2003's "The Missing."
- The British Columbian locations are gorgeous, filmed a mere four miles outside of Vancouver; you'd never know it while viewing, however.
- Steven R. Monroe is adept at doing these low-budget tv flicks in a classy, professional manner. He also directed 2009's well-done "Wyvern" and "Sasquatch Mountain." If you appreciated those flicks you'll likely enjoy this one.
- Some complain about the score and songs chosen but I like the music in Monroe's films. He strives for the dramatic and emotionally-stirring rather than cliched horror, e.g. "Friday the 13th." Monroe knows full-well he's not making "Citizen Kane" and that these are essentially throw-away tv horror flicks but he does his best to make a classy product. Gotta respect that.
WHAT DOESN'T WORK:
- Aside from the film's aforementioned lack of originality, this IS a low-budget tv flick and is therefore not as technically good as "Alien" and "Prophecy," the films from which it heavily borrows. It's made for tv and it shows.
- Like those films "It Waits" has a very slow build up. I know everyone always raves about "Alien" -- and I'm a fan (although I prefer the sequel "Aliens") -- but it does have a plodding vibe. This approach can be boring unless you're braced for it or in a kicked-back mood.
- It's commendable that the filmmakers attempt to give us some depth with the subplot of Danny's struggle over a drunken car accident, but it's not very moving; "Sasquatch Mountain," by contrast, reaches for depth and largely achieves it (yes, despite the Bigfoot trappings).
- Aside from the opening cave massacre, ultra-horror fans may be disappointed by the low body count.
- Some cite the relatively moderate gore but I saw quite a bit. Are beheadings, headless corpses and impalings thru the rear-end mediocre gore?
BOTTOM LINE: "It Waits" is a must for Cerina Vincent fans and those who enjoy monster-in-the-woods flicks, or both. It's well-done for what it is, but you've seen it all before.
GRADE: C+
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good acting and directing but the story is not so good
Added 8/30/2009
I like the theme of the movie: people stranded out in the wild with no means of communication with the outside world and thus no way of getting help. This is an ideal scenario for a monster movie.
To me both the acting and the directing was good and convincing.
My problem is that there's not enough happening in the movie until towards the end....so it's abit of a wait.
The film has an interesting beginning that successfully draws you in to the movie, but then there's a long interval with not much interesting happening, then the last one-third of the film picks up the pace again.
It's a very uneven film, and for me it was the actress Cerina Vincent that kept me watching it, I thought she was very good in her role.
So it's the script that fails in this case, it's just not convincing and interesting enough in its horror-story.
The script has some good parts such as the main character's background story, which did make me interested in the character, but it's not supposed to be a drama but a horror movie.
If you want something that's not too gory but still with some suspense in it, it could be worth watching, especially if you have a girlfriend who doesn't like gory horror films....but I wouldn't buy the film.
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It can keep waiting, thanks.
Added 6/1/2009
It Waits (Steven R. Monroe, 2005)
I was just reviewing another Monroe movie (Ogre, above), then I'm paging through the headers of the movies I haven't reviewed yet, and I find another Monroe joint. So if you've read that one, you probably have a good idea of how this review is going to pan out. I might as well just come right out with it: there are three certainties in life. They are death, taxes, and the badness of Steven R. Monroe movies.
It Waits for Cerina Vincent (Fashion Victim), who here plays Danny, a forest ranger with some recent demons in her past that have been driving her to drink. She's alone in a secluded section of the woods one weekend when all the other forest rangers have been called off to an emergency in another part of the forest. Or she thinks she's alone until her boyfriend Justin (Iron Eagle IV's Dominic Zamprogna) shows up. Now, Danny has been thinking of Justin as an ex, but she hasn't gotten around to telling him that. Welcome to tensionville. Things get a lot worse when they find out they're not the only ones in the woods--a long-dormant demon/monster/thing that's been awakened by blasting is out there with them, and the only one who knows about it besides the only two to have seen it and survive is an old Indian (Skins' Eric Schweig) who remembers his tribe's old tales about the beast and how to send it back to its dormancy. Why, oh why, is it always an old Indian? (A stretch for Schweig, who was under forty at the time the movie was made.)
The old-Indian cliché should tip you off to the amount of thought that went into the script. Pretty much everything here is a cliché, dressed up with some different monster makeup and a couple of ludicrous subplots aimed at developing Cerina Vincent's character. Every time I see Vincent in a movie, I think that somewhere under there is a good actress straining to get out, but she shows up in such awful movies that she never gets the chance to really spread her wings. I can't say the same about anyone else here, as the rest of the cast is comprised of either flat-out bad actors or capable actors who simply can't do anything with the awful script they were given (Schweig is the obvious example here). The movie is trite, silly, and all-around awful, though in its defense it does have the best creature effects I've seen in a Steven R. Monroe movie. Still, that's not nearly enough to recommend it. Avoid. * ½
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The possible prequel to Jeepers Creepers...but don't let that dissuade you.
Added 4/30/2009
A sexy but unstable forest ranger named Danny (Cerina Vincent - the naked chick from Not Another Teen Movie) who recently lost a friend seeks refuge within a Smirnoff bottle. Along with a hilariously prophetic and verbose parrot named Hoppy (who steals every scene), and an underdeveloped love interest with a barely post-pubescent pseudo Jake Gyllenhal, she has various responsibilities, to include searching for lost hikers or the bodies of a massacred archaelogical dig. Little does Danny know - mostly because she's a morally loose, easy, drunk emotional wreck - that the college archaeologists unearthed an alien, skeleton zombie (ASZ) of some kind. In the words of Hoppy before every tense scene, "Uh oh."
With a complex understanding of electronics, engines, and a rudimentary concept of pulley-based booby traps, ASZ is a formidable foe. Factor in the strength to lift a jeep, the ability to jump 20+ feet, and claws that make Freddy's knives look like a fresh manicure, and there's a guaranteed gutting on the horizon. Oh, it gets better. My boy FASZ (Freddy Alien Skeleton Zombie) alos likes to leave mangled and decapitated body parts for survivors to discover, and voyeuristically watches their shock from behind a row of trees (think flaming bag of poo on the doorstep, but for psychopathic monsters). Playful AND murderous! Look for the corpse dinner table and the anal Indian impalement scenes; they're a hoot.
I won't ruin the ending, or spoil the surprise, but the lead up to the final battle involves a rural alarm system of tin cans on a string, some of the worst marksmanship in cinema history, and a ridiculous Native American mumbo-jumbo lecture about cross-dimensional demons or something.
Overall the production, music, sets, scenes, and gore are fairly well done. Nothing spectacular, but nothing incompetent. Cerina Vincent is beautiful throughout. The only downside of the movie is final unveiling of the monster, which looks so much like the Jeepers Creepers beast that this may as well have been the prequel. Overall, it's lacking true scare, and most of the typical horror fare, but it's still enjoyable enough for sadistic horror fans to cheer for FASZ.
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