The name of this film screams out for a pithy, glib assessment of its quality using a structure parallel to the title. "It" stands for the movie and a present-tense verb describes the experience of viewing "It". This is appealing in that it has the simplicity of the thumbs up/down Siskel & Ebert style of review but adds the subtle connotations of the verb one chooses to place after the subject.
While it's easy enough to think of how one expresses the most extreme reactions to a film using this new method (for instance: It Rocks! or It Sucks!), so much more fun can be had with vaguely absurd yet honest assessments such as It Meanders!, It Suffices!, or, my own favorite and one that describes my reaction to It Waits perfectly, It Tries!
My patience, to be precise, is what It Tries. It Waits is wrapped up in a sturdy package of inconsequence. The story is pat: a young lady is forced to draw upon her deepest survival instincts to save her skin from a threatening, mysterious beast in the deep, treacherous forests of the American wilderness. The direction is a stale rehash of overused tried-and-true horror filmmaking: POV shots of the monster stalking its prey, gore, etc. In fact, the only things that distinguish It Waits from others of its ilk are a talking parrot that reminds one of Gizmo from Gremlins and an unusually affecting back story for its protagonist.
The young woman, you see, is a forest ranger, overcome with guilt over her culpability in the death of her best friend. Despite the strapping young boyfriend who's willing to talk about her problems to a fault ("Whatever it is you're hiding… it's diminishing you," says the concerned beau [awww]), she'd rather take the jobs that let her remain alone in an isolated cabin. Here she sort-of tends to her rangerly duties, but most of her time is spent grieving and talking to the parrot (who, with a perfect mimicry of cold-blooded intelligence, keeps asking innocently posed questions about the grieved-for dead friend).
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