It Waits

Review

My main reason for choosing this movie, besides it seemd like a possibly decent flick, was Cerina Vincent, the "hot but pissed" reason to watch Cabin Fever. I had almost nothing to go on. Creature feature. Werewolf? Demon? Who knew what "It" was (hopefully not a clown). I went into this one cold.

The first thing that scared me about this movie was the low bar the acting was set at. The first couple of scenes, with the team of explorers, had nearly no emotions, reminiscent of a high school play rehearsal. A movie, though, is often greater (or worse) than the sum of its parts, so I didn't shut it down or anything.

The first scene involving Vincent manages to convey four facts. 1) She is already showing off more skin that could reasonably be expected given storyline alone (a trend that generally continues). 2) She is going to be fighting her own personal demons. 3) The acting bar is not going to be raised anytime soon (in fact, never). And, 4) forest rangers require webcams and videostreams to make phone calls to base camp. Oh, and apparently parrots can be taken into bars.

At this point, I lamented my lack of alcoholic beverage and strapped in for a ride.

What's worse than the acting refusing to get any better is that the logic seems to get worse. Starting with an unmanned dam that requires rangers to stop by a daily basis to stop it for collapsing, it quick goes to an utterly unrealistic reaction to the first few attack by the beast. Let me enlighten you on it. After establishing the beast is strong enough to flip a jeep and more than agile enough to climb up a fire-watch tower and leap down without being spotted, they continue to insist that the firetower's weak little wood door and near 360 degrees of windows might do something. Also, they clearly establish very quickly on that the monster attacks during the day, as even as the main character knows, and yet she still treats the night as though its the big danger.

And, oh, what's this? They are splitting up. GENIUS!

This movie is going down as a perfect example of American horror movies' reliance on idiotic actions from its characters to progress the plot.

The good thing about the horror genre, though, is that even flawed movies tend to be enjoyable in their own right, developing a sense of fun in their illogic. This one is no real exception. After all, we are talking about a movie that has a slow-motion breast jiggle right during an emotionally sad moment, apparently just because they can; made possible because they apparently issue women tight tanktops as standard uniform (ironically, despite their insistance to push the tight and white; when it comes to a rain scene earlier, she puts on extra clothes). The only issues I had with it was the pushing of the "there is going to be a plot twist" feel from about fifteen minutes in. Is there? Well, I'll not spoil that for you.

Mediocre movie. Fair horror movie. Couple of well shot scenes. Plagued by a couple of almost idiotic scenes that are the exact opposite of horror. Pretty hot lead actress. Worth watching once. Doubt you want to own it. Rent this puppy when you want a light scare night.

"Memorable" Quote

"Some people live in a world of calendars and grocery lists, car pools and...I call them protopeds. Practical people who walk a predetermined path in life and only see the things put in front of them. On the other end of the spectrum are the empaths, and they are usually on a vision quest. So, before I confide in you, I need to know which category you fit into."

(sigh) [Note, the sigh is mine, not part of the movie. And yes, this is better than the "Hopefully, the Great Spirit" line that comes soon after. Yay for using Native Americans to further a horror movie plot line.]