Juan Rayo
10-02-2006, 12:19 PM
Not sure what the policy is in terms of us simple folk posting our reviews here, if it's not allowed, please delete and forget!
IT WAITS (2005)
I have always been a sucker for horror movies set in the woods. Maybe that is something that started with Evil Dead, or with my own enthusiasm for camping and climbing, the fact is I believe mountains and beautiful green forests –being so full of life- are a perfect background for horror movies.
And over the years of course we have had our share of forest horror: ¨Dog Soldiers”, the “Evil Dead” series, the Jason series, Wrong Turn, all kinds of good, bad and horrible stuff set in the background of the mountain trees.
But really, is there ONE horror movie in which the forest is as much a protagonist as the humans? I mean in the way in that, say, The Descent turns the CAVES into the star of the show (as Mr. Davies points out in his review right here at HE). So when, while idle browsing for horror movies in the IMDB I read about IT LIVES and the way the woods were so beautifully portrayed, well, I was interested.
I am ALSO a sucker for Richard Matheson –only one of the greatest writers ever-, so when I saw the name attached to this movie via writing credits (turns out its Richard Matheson the son) I was completely sold. The fact that the movie stars the Lovely Cerina Vincent (Cabin Fever) as beautiful “forest ranger” Danielle was just the icing.
“Could this be” I thought to myself “the famed rental jewel?” you know what I mean, that obscure film nobody is talking about until YOU discover it and it becomes a cult favorite. Well, sadly, the answer is a resounding NO.
When we first see Danielle, I thought she was quite beautiful and, refreshingly, had been in a healthy diet (no overly skinny women for me please). But she is given the task of carrying the movie, and god is she NOT ready for it. Her acting sucked so much that before 30 minutes had passed I had gone thru a complete reversal, from thinking her hot to totally hating her. It turns out Danielle was involved in a grisly accident (get it? Grisly? Heh. Ok then no more lame forest jokes), and this accident is SO dramatic and SO important to the story and to Danielle’s relationship with the obligatory male lead, that we have to endure flashback over flashback over flashback of it, even though it’s completely fucking evident what happened the FIRST time we see it, and we don’t need to be reminded of it every five minutes. Worst, lamest, storytelling technique.
So anyway she is depressed because of the LIFE CHANGING accident, and she shuts herself away from civilization in her job as a forest ranger, which basically consists of getting drunk and pulling some lever in a dam. Yes, my dream job.
Then, one day, STUPID PEOPLE ® release an ancient, vengeful, brutal, evil creature ® from some cave and the deaths begin, for some reason centering around Danielle and her cabin.
At this point I understand this is a silly movie, and I am trying to like it for what it is, but really, it doesn’t help that the dialogue is contrived and moronic. And then, I shit you not, we get flashbacks of the flashbacks and flashbacks of stuff that happened not 20 minutes ago in the movie. Yup, a truly great storyteller, this guy.
Now, the next thing will probably make you believe I am bulshiting you but I swear I am not: another of the characters is an obviously dubbed talking PARROT. There. And I wasn’t drunk either (at that point) so I am pretty sure the little beastie is in there. And it’s not even in there as a joke or something, it’s deadly serious.
Completing our main cast is Justin (Dominic Zamprogna), a fellow ranger, love interest and, wouldn’t you know it, brother of one of the girls killed in the TERRIFYING LIFE CHANGING EVENT FROM THE PAST and, as thus, a walking guilt bag in the eyes of Danielle. When he shows up, she adamantly refuses to let him “stay the night to talk”, only 15 seconds later she is totally for it.
Justin comes out as an ok actor I guess, he’s a likeable, normal dude who, finding himself in the situation of being alone, in a ranger cabin in the middle of the woods with Danielle, can only think of ravishing her. So yeah, a man can relate.
This is the moment she chooses to confess her TERRIBLE SECRET FROM THE PAST to him, in what is supposed to be a emotionally charged moment. But at this point, however, he is quite evidently so horny that he doesn’t care if she killed his only son or made a pact with horrible spawns of hell or anything, so the “big, dramatic revelation ™” is brushed aside in favor of doing the nasty. Which they do. And we get to see nothing, nada, no Cerina Vincent at all. LAME.
So anyway, they do it,. Later, an obviously unsatisfied Danielle cries herself to sleep because she can’t believe the only guy in a thousand miles is such a bad lay. Well maybe that is not what the scene is supposed to portray, but that is totally what I got from it.
As the monster attacks they decided to get out of their ONLY COVER, and then go back to the cabin. Why? Don’t ask, the only people in horror movies are STUPID PEOPLE (tm) So they in their way back (of forth at this point I didn’t know and I didn’t care) they meet with a couple of lost campers, husband (monster chew) and wife (wimpy monster chew). They, OF COURSE, decide to go their own way (despite the fact that they just spend two days desperately lost in the woods!) only to become, well, monster fodder. The audience doesn’t care of course, because in the scarce time they are on screen we already decide that the man is a complete dick and the woman a complete no one. They got what was coming to them.
Then at some point they get back to the cabin and suddenly, completely unexpected, there is actually an AWESOME scene in the movie. Mark it well, it lasts all of 3 seconds and doesn’t happen again, ever.
It is now that Justin and Danielle decide to oblige the time honored tradition of STUPID PEOPLE ™ in horror movies: while being opposed by a single, murdering opponent, SPLIT UP. He actually utters the line “Let’s split up, WE’LL BE SAFER”. I weep for horror movies.
Mucho generic drivel ensues, you know how it goes, she ends up facing the monster alone and all that. But the thing I hated the most about the movie was the fact that some character appears out of NOWHERE an hour into the movie to EXPLAIN the story and provide background and exposition to the whole thing, given that the director –A Mr. Steven R. Monroe- has been incapable of doing such a thing thru, you know, story telling.
The music in this movie is a mixed bag. On one hand it has this Native American sounding stuff that is really cool and that really works in this movie; it fits the action in the woods like a glove and I loved it. And then the director felt he had to include these REALLY SHITTY love pop songs in there, and, well, it doesn’t work.
The creature itself is a Creeper rip off, nothing special here.
And as for my original point of interest: the settings, you know the beautiful forest. A mixed bag as well. It´s not used nearly as much as it should be, but when it is, it really surprises you in it´s beauty and the way it is shot. The trees appear as majestic and gigantic and beautiful as only someone who discovers them in the rising fog of the early morning sees them, props to the director of photography for delivering the one redeeming thing in this movie.
All in all, not something I would recommend, not terrible in a “please kill me now” way, but really, nothing particular about it. The whole thing is just, well, bland.
Quotes:
(Expert) “It’s a female, therefore, less dangerous” (talking about the monster that is about to IMPALE HIM IN A FUCKING PINE TREE).
She ¨what do we do¨. He ¨we take turns watching the door¨
He: "Let’s split up, we´ll be SAFER".Edited> spelling
IT WAITS (2005)
I have always been a sucker for horror movies set in the woods. Maybe that is something that started with Evil Dead, or with my own enthusiasm for camping and climbing, the fact is I believe mountains and beautiful green forests –being so full of life- are a perfect background for horror movies.
And over the years of course we have had our share of forest horror: ¨Dog Soldiers”, the “Evil Dead” series, the Jason series, Wrong Turn, all kinds of good, bad and horrible stuff set in the background of the mountain trees.
But really, is there ONE horror movie in which the forest is as much a protagonist as the humans? I mean in the way in that, say, The Descent turns the CAVES into the star of the show (as Mr. Davies points out in his review right here at HE). So when, while idle browsing for horror movies in the IMDB I read about IT LIVES and the way the woods were so beautifully portrayed, well, I was interested.
I am ALSO a sucker for Richard Matheson –only one of the greatest writers ever-, so when I saw the name attached to this movie via writing credits (turns out its Richard Matheson the son) I was completely sold. The fact that the movie stars the Lovely Cerina Vincent (Cabin Fever) as beautiful “forest ranger” Danielle was just the icing.
“Could this be” I thought to myself “the famed rental jewel?” you know what I mean, that obscure film nobody is talking about until YOU discover it and it becomes a cult favorite. Well, sadly, the answer is a resounding NO.
When we first see Danielle, I thought she was quite beautiful and, refreshingly, had been in a healthy diet (no overly skinny women for me please). But she is given the task of carrying the movie, and god is she NOT ready for it. Her acting sucked so much that before 30 minutes had passed I had gone thru a complete reversal, from thinking her hot to totally hating her. It turns out Danielle was involved in a grisly accident (get it? Grisly? Heh. Ok then no more lame forest jokes), and this accident is SO dramatic and SO important to the story and to Danielle’s relationship with the obligatory male lead, that we have to endure flashback over flashback over flashback of it, even though it’s completely fucking evident what happened the FIRST time we see it, and we don’t need to be reminded of it every five minutes. Worst, lamest, storytelling technique.
So anyway she is depressed because of the LIFE CHANGING accident, and she shuts herself away from civilization in her job as a forest ranger, which basically consists of getting drunk and pulling some lever in a dam. Yes, my dream job.
Then, one day, STUPID PEOPLE ® release an ancient, vengeful, brutal, evil creature ® from some cave and the deaths begin, for some reason centering around Danielle and her cabin.
At this point I understand this is a silly movie, and I am trying to like it for what it is, but really, it doesn’t help that the dialogue is contrived and moronic. And then, I shit you not, we get flashbacks of the flashbacks and flashbacks of stuff that happened not 20 minutes ago in the movie. Yup, a truly great storyteller, this guy.
Now, the next thing will probably make you believe I am bulshiting you but I swear I am not: another of the characters is an obviously dubbed talking PARROT. There. And I wasn’t drunk either (at that point) so I am pretty sure the little beastie is in there. And it’s not even in there as a joke or something, it’s deadly serious.
Completing our main cast is Justin (Dominic Zamprogna), a fellow ranger, love interest and, wouldn’t you know it, brother of one of the girls killed in the TERRIFYING LIFE CHANGING EVENT FROM THE PAST and, as thus, a walking guilt bag in the eyes of Danielle. When he shows up, she adamantly refuses to let him “stay the night to talk”, only 15 seconds later she is totally for it.
Justin comes out as an ok actor I guess, he’s a likeable, normal dude who, finding himself in the situation of being alone, in a ranger cabin in the middle of the woods with Danielle, can only think of ravishing her. So yeah, a man can relate.
This is the moment she chooses to confess her TERRIBLE SECRET FROM THE PAST to him, in what is supposed to be a emotionally charged moment. But at this point, however, he is quite evidently so horny that he doesn’t care if she killed his only son or made a pact with horrible spawns of hell or anything, so the “big, dramatic revelation ™” is brushed aside in favor of doing the nasty. Which they do. And we get to see nothing, nada, no Cerina Vincent at all. LAME.
So anyway, they do it,. Later, an obviously unsatisfied Danielle cries herself to sleep because she can’t believe the only guy in a thousand miles is such a bad lay. Well maybe that is not what the scene is supposed to portray, but that is totally what I got from it.
As the monster attacks they decided to get out of their ONLY COVER, and then go back to the cabin. Why? Don’t ask, the only people in horror movies are STUPID PEOPLE (tm) So they in their way back (of forth at this point I didn’t know and I didn’t care) they meet with a couple of lost campers, husband (monster chew) and wife (wimpy monster chew). They, OF COURSE, decide to go their own way (despite the fact that they just spend two days desperately lost in the woods!) only to become, well, monster fodder. The audience doesn’t care of course, because in the scarce time they are on screen we already decide that the man is a complete dick and the woman a complete no one. They got what was coming to them.
Then at some point they get back to the cabin and suddenly, completely unexpected, there is actually an AWESOME scene in the movie. Mark it well, it lasts all of 3 seconds and doesn’t happen again, ever.
It is now that Justin and Danielle decide to oblige the time honored tradition of STUPID PEOPLE ™ in horror movies: while being opposed by a single, murdering opponent, SPLIT UP. He actually utters the line “Let’s split up, WE’LL BE SAFER”. I weep for horror movies.
Mucho generic drivel ensues, you know how it goes, she ends up facing the monster alone and all that. But the thing I hated the most about the movie was the fact that some character appears out of NOWHERE an hour into the movie to EXPLAIN the story and provide background and exposition to the whole thing, given that the director –A Mr. Steven R. Monroe- has been incapable of doing such a thing thru, you know, story telling.
The music in this movie is a mixed bag. On one hand it has this Native American sounding stuff that is really cool and that really works in this movie; it fits the action in the woods like a glove and I loved it. And then the director felt he had to include these REALLY SHITTY love pop songs in there, and, well, it doesn’t work.
The creature itself is a Creeper rip off, nothing special here.
And as for my original point of interest: the settings, you know the beautiful forest. A mixed bag as well. It´s not used nearly as much as it should be, but when it is, it really surprises you in it´s beauty and the way it is shot. The trees appear as majestic and gigantic and beautiful as only someone who discovers them in the rising fog of the early morning sees them, props to the director of photography for delivering the one redeeming thing in this movie.
All in all, not something I would recommend, not terrible in a “please kill me now” way, but really, nothing particular about it. The whole thing is just, well, bland.
Quotes:
(Expert) “It’s a female, therefore, less dangerous” (talking about the monster that is about to IMPALE HIM IN A FUCKING PINE TREE).
She ¨what do we do¨. He ¨we take turns watching the door¨
He: "Let’s split up, we´ll be SAFER".Edited> spelling