The Lightning Bug's Lair: It Waits (2005) and Who Wouldn’t for the B.L.O.G Cerina Vincent

9/3/09

It Waits (2005) and Who Wouldn’t for the B.L.O.G Cerina Vincent

It was only recently that I stumbled across this film because it was a trailer on something else I was watching. While the trailer showed a bit of promise, and a lot of Cerina Vincent, I didn’t hold out much hope that the film would be any good. Well, this is going to be one of the shorter B.L.O.G. reviews because I got just about what I expected. Not that that’s such a bad thing. After all, horror fans have a thicker skin for crap than the average movie viewer, and you just may need it on this one.

First a moment on Cerina Vincent. The former Miss Teen USA got her first big break playing Yellow Ranger Maya on Power Rangers Lost Galaxy back in 1999, but most horror fans will recognize her from Eli Roth’s 2002 debut Cabin Fever. Cerina nabbed one of the most memorable parts in that film as Marcy of the infamous leg shaving scene. The success of Cabin Fever lead her to a string of low budget horror flicks such as Seven Mummies, Sasquatch Mountain, and Return to House on Haunted Hill. She’s also branched off into some non-genre work appearing in the Showtime series Manchild and the romantic comedy Everybody Wants to Be Italian. In recent years, she has turned to writing, co-authoring two books, How to Eat Like a Hot Chick and How to Date Like a Hot Chick. She has also written a couple of screenplays, but as of yet none have been produced.

Now that I’ve made you wait, let’s talk about It and why It Waits. A group of archeology students is poking around in a National Park when they find a sealed off cave. They make their way inside only to be slaughtered by a vicious creature. The creature, now loose in the park, begins to kill indiscriminately anyone that crosses his path. The forest that it’s terrorizing is under the protection of Danielle ‘Danny’ St. Claire (Cerina Vincent), but Ms. St. Claire is not on top of her game. She is wracked with guilt over her best friend’s death in a drunk driving accident, and so along with her dead best friend’s talking parrot, she has retreated to this far flung assignment. Drawn to Danny’s sadness and guilt, the creature begins to stalk her, and she must get herself together to fight back against the monster of Native American legend.

As you might notice I never mentioned any other characters in the synopsis, and there’s a good reason for that. A couple of others show up, some hikers, a boyfriend, and her boss, but none of them last long enough to make any kind of impression. In fact most of the film we are left with just Danny talking to herself or to the African Grey Parrot. Sure those are supposed to be smart birds, and the movie wastes no time letting you know, but I think their conversational skills are a bit overstated. Essentially this film is a one woman affair, and while Ms. Vincent does a good acting job, she struggles to keep the film moving all by herself.

I think the problem might be that It Wait’s director Steven R. Monroe was not really interested in making a horror film. While he made this one, and several other made for TV flicks like Ogre and Wyvern, I think it’s pretty telling that his newest film, Complacent (2009), which also stars Ms. Vincent, is a drama focusing on two sisters dealing with the older sister’s mentally abusive marriage. The real story in It Waits is not about the monster or the sloppily thrown together kill scenes, it’s a story about one woman’s guilt about getting drunk, driving, and killing her best friend. Monroe used a thin veneer of a horror to try and disguise the story he really wanted to tell, but the attempt was as wan and weak as the boyfriend that showed up trying to save her from the monster. The film could work with those themes, but neither the writing of the horror elements or the emotional center of the film were accomplished.

I don’t really have much else to say about this flick. It’s the kind of fare I would expect to find playing on SyFy on a Sunday afternoon. Yeah, it was just that good. I had so many problems with this film that it’s not even worth going into each and every one of them. Suffice it to say that I warn all of you off of watching this one so you can avoid the dull plot, underwhelming kills, and I have to say it, she might have been a Power Ranger, but she was no forest ranger. Cerina Vincent is a beautiful and talented actress, and I hope she gets some much better roles than this. So, please folks, don’t waste your time here. It might Wait, but you should just keep on moving down the line.

Bugg Rating