À espera do mal

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.

Casual channel surfing this morning-and ended up watching this On SciFi Channel. I was kind of impressed- The main character's angst and predicament and her guts in confronting the bad stuff reminded me of Siggy Weaver's Ripley character. I liked the setting and the Ranger stuff. I liked Dr Riverwind(for all of 5 minutes). The character parts of the story were more interesting than the actual "horror movie" stuff. Actually made me care enough to sweat out the action sequences. I was curious who the writer was and when I saw Richard Matheson it confirmed my suspicions that this script was not dreamed up in a frat house over a vat of vodka jello shots but was the work of a decent writer. I thought Cerina did a great job in her portrayal.

And Hoppy ROCKS! He and Jonesie from Alien should get together someday( over vodka jello shots) and trade war-stories.

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.

Okay so at the beginning of this one some people blast an opening to some cave where they find some glyphs / 'ancient markings' .

Then we meet Danielle, who apparently works as some Engineer monitoring some dam or something, she has a parrot and loves to drink vodka right out of the bottle.

And JUSTIN, her BF? He has a couple of great lines when they speak

+1 Star for California Elk Pi$$ line

Wait is she not an engineer? She's some forest Ranger? Little bit of huge responsibility for a Forest Ranger to be draining a dam? And I can tell that the way Danielle talks she has no business being a forest ranger anyway. She sounds like a nutter.

-1 Star for Forest Ranger Danny being a nutter......

Apparently Danny's best friend Julie died in a car accident that was Danny's fault and Danny blames herself for her friends death. And Danny is obviously not dykey enough to be a forest ranger either. Anyways at least we get past all the mushy stuff and we get to Justin and Danny doin' it. Will they break the rule??? Yes it appears they will!!!!

-1 Star for a sex scene with absolutely no nudity. We don't approve!

Then somehow all their clothes got back on . There's some creature outside making noise. Justin says that ain't no bear!! He tells Danny to call for help and he gets his rifle!!!

Anyways that crisis passes. Then they meet the token couple hiking in the woods. They warn this couple of the creature that might be out there. Male hiker he doesn't like being warned! And he has a great line!!!

+1 Star for a great line!

Then that couple they run into that creature in the WOODS!!! And they both get a GREAT DEATH!!! And then RANGER TEAM they find their JEEP ripped apart,. And the camper bodies have been stsashed on top of their RANGER TOWER!!! Oh dear this creature is smart too!!! How it hung up that dead couple in the ranger TOWER!!! Wow really they bury this couple?? They got time to dig 2 graves? That's just really dumb. This creature could be anywhere.

-1 Star for not worrying about creature at all who just ripped 2 hikers up hung them up and skinned them

Then it's a good time for flirting and kissing. Danny and Justin just can't keep their hands off each other, despite being in TREMENDOUS FEAR FOR THEIR LIVES!!! IT IS TIME FOR SOME TONGUE HOCKEY!!!

-1 sTAR AGAIN!!!

THEN It appears that JUSTIN runs into the creature in the WOODS. I don't think he's gonna walk away from that one. Then Danny finds Justin's body on top of the TOWER. Danny has time for digging a grave for him too!!!! REally weird how much time she has to spend digging graves, with this creature out there who could appear ANYTIME!!!

OKAY now RANGER DANNY IS ON THE CASE!!! SHE STARTS opening cans of corn and beans and making a giant pile of......well OF CORN AND BEANS.....!! What is that supposed to be?? Bait???

So something shows up and Danny blasts that thing!! But there is no body!!! And Danny decides to escape with the PARROT!!! WAIT she's gonna track this thing?? LOL too far to walk to get the heck out of there?? But I can go track this creature to 'where it lives'. Oh dear.

Oh she finds that Justin's head was put on display also!!! And she digs a grave for Justins head!!! Oh and while she's wandering through everything she meets UNCAS, and UNCAS just happens to be living in some trailer nearby and tells her all about the CAVE SPIRIT that his students uncovered!!

But then she doesn't give up!! She continues her hunt!!!! She is rewarded!!!! She meets the creature and it doesn't kill her!!! It takes a bite of flesh out of her and flies off!!! Why?? Why does it fly off?? Why didn't it kill her????

-1 STar because it killed everyone else it met, except her.....

Okay so she finds the hiker's phone and calls her BOSS. HER BOSS comes and picks her up and on the way back they find A BODY MOUNTED ON A POLE!!!!

+1 STAR FOR THAT BODY MOUNTED ON THAT POLE RIGHT UP HIS COLO!!! Man you cannot unsee that lol

But BOSS he gets crushed!!! And Danny she's driving the JEEP now and she's on the run!!! Creature can fly and it's chasing her a$$!! Omg she craftily kills it with dynamite???? Wow is she smart!!!

So now she can walk out of there. Then she's talking to a COP? She says there's bodies up there somewhere, and she doesn't know who killed them!!! And then...THE PARROT shows up at her HOUSE?? How did the Parrot find her HOUSE? Okay what is the final score for this stinker???

I guess it finished with a 3. Boy what a pile of crap. A couple of good lines but the rest of it, pretty damn bad. 3/10.

How many times have we been down this path before? This low-budget production is a basic run-of-the-mill monster on the loose in some backwoods. A demonic creature (of negative energy) from Native American Indian folklore. But you can't argue that it doesn't deliver what it achieves to do. However it's not particularly exciting in its durably slick execution, despite sensational location choices and the best efforts from its dependably committed cast. I had a hard time believing the very beautiful Cerina Vincent in the lead role as a park ranger, but that's not taking anything away from her performance because she does carry the film. Her character is a complex one, albeit rather clichéd in that she's exorcising her own demons and drowning her sorrows with alcohol. Her boyfriend ranger is played by Dominic Zaprogna and he brings a confident likability to the role. For comedy relief a talking exotic parrot is chucked in. While it can labour a bit, there are some eventful moments of suspense with the creature toying with its victims (mainly at the back-end involving Vincent's character) and when it decides to finish the job it does leave a bloody splatter with jolts few and far. Some instances seem laughable though. The camera-work has numerous monster POV shots and that frenetic hand held photography shows up. The monster FX is decently captured and does look impressive when we see it in full sight. Standard, but modest creature-feature entertainment.

"If its coming after me. How do I kill it. "