Es lauert

This movie is the reason why I scour the video store shelves for low budget horror flicks. Most of the time, of course, I am sadly disappointed but other times - like this - I am pleasantly surprised. Considering Richard Christian Matheson wrote the story I was fairly confident, although it is a rather pedestrian story about an ancient Indian demon, inadvertently released from a cave, wreaking havoc on a mountainside. A female park ranger, wrestling with her own demons, has to find the ability to battle this monster and save herself. The horror elements were standard and fairly well done and the script, while spotty, was okay. "It Waits" is decent horror fare, better than some of the dreck that is getting released in movie theaters.

Okay - I realize this movie belongs to a genre that is, for the most part, immune to scrutiny. Nevertheless, it is always disappointing to see the same ridiculous clichés about stupid people doing stupid things in order to give the unseen monster easy pickings (not to mention to keep the writer, director, and producer from exerting themselves by actually trying to think up a fresh idea.) How many times do we need to see someone skipping out into the woods in the middle of the night when they know there's a monster bumping people off? Or the contrived love scene (after a bloody discovery) designed to show off the lead actress's exquisite breasts? And the talking bird sidekick? Bottom line: bad acting, worse script - would have been more satisfying to see everyone killed in the first five minutes and then watch the monster wander around aimlessly in the woods for a few hours.

Really not a bad flick, but hardly a novel experience. We've got several clichéd main characters trapped in the deep Canadian woods. Great locations. A monster on the loose. A lead actress (Cerina Vincent) with a tank top. Good cinematography. Even a lovable parrot that somehow acts like a homing pigeon.

Oh, did I mention the MOR soundtrack? For some reason, this picture feels the need to break into song every so often. We get music by Melanie Monroe (?) designed to underline the poignancy of the moments...with a sledge hammer.

Meanwhile, the monster flies around making Predator-like sounds. Why, oh why, has that noise become such a horror movie staple? A passable time waster, but it with a little work it might have been so much more.

OK, but basically an average horror movie.

The most-excellent Cerina Vincent makes this better than it has any right to be.

I was not aware that US Forest Service rangers regularly operate hydroelectric generation plants. I also thought that they were armed, but apparently not.

The idea of a ladder-climbing elk is pretty good, though. But I didn't know that elk could turn vehicles over with their antlers. Guess you learn something new every day.

Very non-scary beast/demon/creature. Fortunately, they hold off showing it until a good way into the film.

Again, Cerina Vincent rescues this from the ho-hum.

For some reason while watching IT WAITS it occurred to me that this movie looks and feels a bit like some sort of 90 minutes long stand alone episode of THE X-FILES (but only without Scully and Mulder running around in it and it's not about aliens either). So that already hints that IT WAITS isn't that bad at all. But as far as 'look & feel' goes, that's where the comparison ends. While on the surface IT WAITS looks like your standard run-of-the-mill creature-in-the-woods feature, it does have a little more to offer. The drama-aspects, predominant in the first half of the movie and coming back with a final twitch in the end, were something you wouldn't exactly expect in the first place from a movie like this and they were even well-developed too. So what am I talking about exactly? I'll keep it vague, so no spoilers. Cerina Vincent (looking good as ever) plays a troubled young ranger, Danielle, coming to terms with her personal demons from the past regarding a traumatic experience and her on-going issues with her boyfriend Justin (played by Dominic Zamprogna, who has a pleasant on-screen charisma). Her location of choice to do all that (and get wasted on alcohol during the process too) is a remote forest outpost. Like I said, the dramatic subplot is interesting, told in a decent fashion and very well portrayed by Miss Vincent. I could only appreciate it, even though I think they over-used the inappropriate tragic/romantic rock songs on the soundtrack.

What about the creature? You very soon learn that it's some demon from a Native American legend. But only later in the movie you learn a bit more about its history and characteristics. The sequence where you learn all that information really felt a bit easy and out-of-place. But I agree that it was necessary to flesh out the character of the creature. The demon-beast itself is a nice creation by Tony Gardner (check out his resumé and you'll find out that the guy always does a good job). It might remind you of The Creeper from JEEPERS CREEPERS mixed with a little bit of PUMPKINHEAD and a face ten times more vicious than any possible demon from the BUFFY series. But it still looks pretty unique. Some of the CGI shots of the creature where a bit less convincing. The kills in this movie are pretty good and gory, and the fun stuff includes that some of the corpses tend to pop up here and there, because our demonoid creature is just a bit more cunning and devious than your average beast.

Another nice touch about IT WAITS is that it's not about a bunch of people (whether it be teenagers or military folks or whatever) fighting some creature in the woods. From the second half of the movie onward, it's Danielle who has to battle it out on her own with the creature. It's Woman vs. Beast here, where the beast could easily be a metaphor for her own dark demons she has got to come to terms with before the movie's closure. And then there's also a nice little supporting role for… a parrot! Now if you want to know how all that works out, you'll just have to watch the movie. I liked IT WAITS more than I expected, but I'll try to temper my enthusiasm in my final rating. Because it still remains just an above average creature feature with a few extra merits going for it (the nice cinematography and the beautiful, mist-laden Canadian forests as scenery being two I haven't even mentioned yet).