It Waits (2005)

It Waits (2005)

Terror in a hostile environment. Danielle, a young forest ranger devastated by the death of her friend, is involved in a road accident. Things only get worse when a group of students release a demon trapped in a cellar…

This film is pretty rubbish. However, I’m not going to give it the worst mark, because there are some nice elements. What’s more, you can always find a lot more rubbish.

When I saw what the creature looked like in a photo, I immediately wanted to see this film. Alas, we don’t see her that much. It’s scary… but the film isn’t really terrifying. The actor must have had a lot of fun in that costume. Although it must be warm and hard to take off to eat or go to the toilet.

It takes about four actors, no doubt for budget reasons. You can see the monster in daylight towards the end of the film, which makes a nice change from the blurred shadows that are usually seen in this kind of film.

A typical B-movie, with special effects that are often laughable and actors that aren’t too bad, but far from transcendent or even screen-stopping. Not to mention catastrophic direction, with all those crazy camera shots and rhythmic gaps. I’d say there’s at least one thing to take away from all this: parrots make excellent watchdogs! The one in this film is fabulous… even if we know that it’s yet another actor who does his voice.

Is this place hostile? It seems to me that this is the name given to a place over which man has no control, a place that, on the face of it, has nothing reassuring about it. It’s dark, unpopulated and not very conducive to travel. Add terror to the mix… and you’ve got the ultimate horror!

Hang on a sec! I didn’t know that romance and love scenes were a horrific element. Were they? Because half the film is infused with them. There’s snogging, flirting and grotesque rose water. Is it still possible to kiss lovingly when you’ve just seen bodies mutilated, bloodied and decapitated? Yes, at least until the monster lady intervenes. Yes, because she’s a female! Do you have a problem with that? Talk to the director! It’s Steven R. Monroe, if ever there was one! Yes, the man who made Grave Halloween, End of the World and I Spit on Your Grave 2 (all three in 2013), but also 12 Disasters – The 12 Disasters of Christmas (2012), Mongolian Death Worms (2010) and Left in Darkness (2006), among others. Nothing to get excited about!

As I was saying…
So here we are in a hostile environment, a vast forest, where a creature X (???) starts persecuting forest rangers. Some will say that it’s badly made and that it should have stopped at the costume shop to change it, because it’s a bit lacking in credibility! As far as I’m concerned… frankly, it’s fine!

As far as explanations are concerned, we’ll have to wait and see, at least those that are even remotely coherent. The film explains that Zeus once lived in a cave, that Jesus was buried there… and that this shows that caves are passageways into other dimensions. Great!

So we have a kind of survival, split between romance and stalking in a hostile environment, with the added bonus of an extra in a monster costume who plays with corpses like a cat with a mouse. Just seeing a heroine team up with a parrot makes you smile! Watch out guys, it’s a really bad script, you really shouldn’t have released it in cinemas! Oh dear… has it already been released? I’m sorry to hear that!

The film begins a bit like The Cave (2005): people enter an underground cavern after opening a breach, only to discover pictorial works depicting what seems to be a legend… which isn’t a legend at all, since all they’re doing is offering a way out to a demonic creature trapped in its cellar, which we’re slow to see (even though it’s right there on the poster, and in the very foreground, no less), but which we soon learn has an innate sense of direction.

The scene is set effectively and straightforwardly, in a superb forest setting that is well enhanced by the visuals and Corey A. Jackson‘s enchanting music. This good introduction is short, to make way for the rest of the story two months later, and it’s from there that everything goes wrong. We’re treated to a long, totally namby-pamby 25-minute sequence, as the heroine is haunted by a road accident in which her best friend died. Depressed, she isolates herself in a forest watchtower to weep over her sad fate, and the best part (or the worst part) is that we weep over our sad fate too. Not for the same reasons, though, because we’re crying to see this ersatz film.

It’s true that Cerina Vincent has been cast in the lead role, accompanied by a Gabonese grey. She’s beautiful, deliciously chubby, with magnificently drawn luscious lips and a bosom that would seem to be opulent and enhanced by a tight tank top, but that in no way makes up for the abysmal emptiness of the script and the numerous inconsistencies (which I won’t go into because that would take far too long) that go with it. I think if Anna Faris had been cast instead, we’d at least have laughed. Because here we don’t laugh any more than we shudder, for want of being scared.

The great saviour arrives, quietly, cautiously, flirtatiously, charmingly, not knowing what he’s going to get himself into. They’re united by… uhhhh… in every sense of the word, I’m tempted to say! First for the best (they might as well have a good time and feel good about themselves) and then for the worst (but they didn’t know that at the time). And that’s what it’s all about: they can team up to face the strange phenomena that surround them, but no! United as never before, they decide to form two groups of one! It’s pathetic, especially when you realise that there’s strength in numbers and that splitting up is completely at odds with a certain line.

The whole scenario is not even remotely believable: from the lost campers who refuse to be taken in by the forest rangers, to the unfortunate camper van driver who figures it all out with the flick of a wrist, to the fact that the creature doesn’t kill the heroine even though it has her at its mercy.

To top it all off, the special effects are questionable, with the creature’s movements jerky. But there’s no need to dwell on the basics of a B-movie, we know the score.