Danielle has a job to do ... she's a responsible forest ranger, despite the drinking and some collateral vehicular homicide, she's still got her act together just enough to show up for work and make sure the nearby dam and reservoir are maintained. Even when there's some hostile spirit loose in the woods, by hook or by crook Danielle still makes sure she shows up for work.

I'm willing to bet your worst day at work doesn't involve finding your lover's head in a tool shed, so Danielle's dedication to her job is pretty commendable. In It Waits, a stylishly made and photographed ten little Indians-style monster movie, there's actually some effort made in the writing and character work by the actors, and I feel like they really wanted to inject a tiny bit of art into the formula.

The thing is, it's not really that scary. The creature looks good, and if the movie were just a tad more frightening they probably could have sold a lot of action figures, but I'm sad to say that I can't imagine a Sideshow Collectible of this guy coming out anytime soon. There's gore (including a particularly memorable sequence set around a dining room table) but a lot of it lacks punch. Maybe just a tad more formula in the mix might have served them well. It's a tricky recipe, but it can be pulled off (as David Cronenberg and Larry Fessenden have proven with their films, to name a few).

When we first meet Danielle (Cerina Vincent, the unlucky shaver in Cabin Fever) she's drinking to mourn the death of her best friend Julie in a car accident. Despite the fact that it was Danielle's drinking that caused her friend's death, this is her way of grieving. But as I said earlier, she holds down a job so she hasn't quite gone whole hog down the Bukowski highway just yet.

Danielle's way too sensitive boyfriend (played by Dominic Zamprogna) shows up to console her and talk about their relationship. They have dinner, screw to some appropriately adult contemporary music, and ...

I think you are beginning to see my point. Does this sound like the kind of movie one would normally review at Monsters At Play? We are at the thirty minute mark of a ninety minute movie and the monster has only been glimpsed briefly during the main credits. I know many critics (this one included) have said that if you take some time to set up the characters its makes the horror that much scarier because you care about the people and all that, but rest assured that after about twenty some minutes of this movie there's going to be some nagging voice in your head that wonders if they didn't screw up at the dvd processing center and slip three reels of a Lifetime movie into the mix.

It's shortly after that that the monster movie part kicks into gear, and maybe if this section had the punch of the last act of Audition I'd forgive the director Steven Monroe for his dramatic indulgences. During an interview given for the behind the scenes featurette, Monroe admits he skews toward the dramatic.

Anyway, back to the monster movie. A Native American spirit, similiar to the Wendigo, has been unearthed by a group of unlucky students and it's killing and torturing those loose in the woods around Danielle's ranger station, including a bickering couple on their vacation, a professorial type who is looking for the creature (thus providing the necessary scene of convenient exposition) and Danielle's boss.

Okay, it is good writing to work with and develop the themes and situations you set up in the beginning, but by now the dramatic movie moments (with Danielle trapped alone in her cabin, remembering Julie and their drunken car crash) and the monster movie moments seem to work against each other's momentum.

It Waits is another release from Anchor Bay as part of IDT Entertainment's deal with Stephen J Cannell (you can check out my review of Demon Hunter, a previous release, here) and like the previous film it has some good moments, but I just can't recommend it to you monsters out there.