They Wait

I caught this at the Toronto Festival like the other reviewer and was very surprised by how entertaining it was. A terrific ghost story. Jaime King puts in a very strong performance and the whole cast is solid. It's been a while since I've witnessed entire audiences jumping in fright and screaming. There is incredible atmosphere in the film and the underlying story is actually quite brilliant in the way it combines multiple cultures, the immigrant experience, Chinese folklore and actual history and fuses it into a genuine crowd-pleasing genre film. Highly original on that front. I'm a pretty well-rounded J-horror freak-boy and I couldn't see any clichés here which was amazing. Great work from director Barbarash as well.

I'm giving it an 8 as it was certainly the cream of the Canadian film crop at the festival (not withstanding Eastern Promises, which is not a Canadian story with Canadian actors). There is an obvious very large audience for it and it's well made. Looking at the IMDb scores, while I write this, there's a couple dozen 1's dragging the score down. How could that be? This is a pretty good film! Is this because Uwe Boll has his name attached as an executive producer? People are rating it with 1's and trashing it on their blogs without even seeing it. Sad. What a shame for the sincere filmmakers behind this quality movie.

Seeing THEY WAIT at the Vancouver Festival, people were screaming at the scares, and the audience broke out into applause after a tense, white-knuckle 89 minutes. THEY WAIT leaps into action with a highly engaging first half, and then escalates quickly into a harrowing and riveting second part. Surprisingly strong performance from Jaime King and excellent turns by the rest of the cast. THEY WAIT - quite frankly - really does have blockbuster theatrical hit written all over it as another commentator has said, and has remarked the only legitimate print journalist to review it so far; everything, from the visuals to the performances, seems to be operating at a Hollywood movie level, far beyond its budget and seemingly nothing like the usual unpopular and noncommercial Canadian film disasters. Does this film mark the return to the days when Canadian films like SCANNERS or PORKY'S could take the box office crown away from the Hollywood studios? People applauding at the end, swarming around the lobby talking about how good it was -- that tells you everything you need to know about the reception to the film by an audience. With a decent release and a good ad campaign, this will be a hit. Though not perfect -- there is a certain clunkiness to a flashback sequence, for example -- the film is a revelation in doing what it sets out to do. It bangs virtually every mark. Director Ernie Barbarash has grown leaps and bounds from his previous efforts with the mediocre to dull low-rent CUBE ZERO and has hit the Hollywood Standard here. This film shines and looks and sounds terrific.

Paul Kael @ rotten tomatoes

I have reviewed this under another name. I saw it again today and am as impressed with it now as I was on first viewing. Jamie King and family return to North America after living in China. Her young son falls ill and apparently is possessed by a vengeful spirit. As she seeks to find a way to save him, King begins to unravel an unspeakable mystery involving Asians working in a nearby sweatshop. To say more would be to give it away. This is a terrific little ghost movie/crime flick with plenty of scary images and some moments that will make you jump right out of your seat. Some Chinese folklore is woven into the plot, although I do not know if is the real thing or not. Highly recommended. It pops up on cable once in awhile.

Jaime Kinmg stars as a young mom in THEY WAIT, a murder mystery and ghost story rolled into one. She travels to the state from her home in Shaghai to attend a funeral. Weird things begin to happen almost immediately, including the son sliding into a trance-lie state and a mute young Chinese woman popping up and then disappearing again. Lovers of ghost movies, especially ones with a revenge plot, will figure out the plot early on, but they are likely to be surprised by the ultimate solution. We get a little Chinese folklore mixed in to spice things up. King is the only recognizable name in the cast, and appears in virtually every scene. She does a fine job as a harried mother trying to make sense of the many odd things that happen to her. The movie is atmospheric and occasionally scary. It is in the vein of THE OTHERS and SIXTH SENSE.

After the release of Japan's "Ringu", Eastern horror became extremely popular in the west and lead to a series of remakes including "The Grudge" and "The Ring". "They Wait" isn't a remake of an existing Eastern horror but an original production in which an American mother (played by Jaime King) and her six year old son find themselves facing the ghosts of the Chinese community into which they have arrived from Shanghai. Although it may not be based on a Japanese or Chinese horror movie, "They Wait" unfortunately comes across like a compilation of greatest hits from such productions.

There's one very good scare quite early in the movie but, once this is over, everything else comes across as quite tame. "They Wait" also unfortunately employs some terrible CGI effects in places. Some of the ghosts (especially those seen before the titles roll) look like something from a Playstation game! This is quite surprising as the rest of the movie looks to have had quite a bit of money thrown at it and director Ernie Barbarash (who also directed "Cube: Zero") knows how to make his movie look extremely polished.

The lead performances are all very good (Ms King, in particular, proves to be a strong center for the story) but the plot is quite uninspired. You'll quickly guess what's going on and who is responsible, and the way in which things are resolved also leaves a lot to be desired. But is it a bad movie? No, not at all. If you catch it on television late at night, you'll probably be perfectly entertained throughout its running time and enjoy something that has many charms amongst its faults. If you pay money to rent it out, however, you might feel you've wasted money on something that seems incredibly similar to so many other movies.

At the time of writing, this movie has a 3.8 score on IMDb which is, in my opinion, completely unjustified. I've seen a few movies deserving of a score like that and this movie certainly isn't one of them! I can guess at the reason for this, and that reason would be the presence of a certain Uwe Boll who most movie fans will know as the director of a growing library of terrible movies (Alone In The Dark, In The Name Of The King, Bloodrayne etc). However, it's worth pointing out that Uwe Boll was simply the producer here. He didn't write this movie and he certainly didn't direct it!

In summary then, "They Wait" is an inoffensive horror movie which works nicely as a late night time-waster but not much more.