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List Price: $19.99 | | Label: Uwe Boll Productions
Salesrank: 64851
Released: September 16, 2008 |
| Our Price: $8.39 |
| Used Price: $2.45 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
After living in Shanghai for three years, Sarah (King), her husband, Jason, and their young son, Sammy, return to North America for a family funeral. But something strange is going on. Sammy starts seeing ghosts and then falls gravely ill. Traditional western medicine offers no hope. Sarah turns to a mysterious pharmacist who warns that her son is being held in a death grip by a living corpse. Sarah must find out what the spirits want if she is to save her child. Time is of the essence; once the sun rises the next day, the last day of Ghost Month, Sammy will be lost forever. The spirits have spoken.
They Wait Reviews:
They still wait... for a much better director to remake this. 
2009-07-28 - They Wait (Ernie Barbarash, 2007)
Why is it that, when westerners attempt to make Asian-style ghost stories, they routinely fail? Part of the reason is because the American film industry focuses on the flash and the glitter as the reason for the films' worldwide success, instead of understanding that the movies are such hits because they give us solid, realistic characters with whom we can identify. Another part of the reason is that, in the west, we get people like Ernie Barbarash to direct them. Ernie Barbarash's resume previous to this included execrable sequels to two excellent films, Cube and Stir of Echoes; what in the world caused someone to tab him for this? I expected it to be awful as soon as I saw the director's name. It wasn't quite as bad as I expected, but it certainly doesn't qualify as good.
The scene: an unnamed city in the Pacific Northwest. (I'm sure someone more versed in architecture could pinpoint the city, but that person is not me.) It's October, or "hungry ghost month", when the Chinese believe that the spirits of the restless dead come back to haunt the living. When one of his beloved uncles dies, Jason (Bottom Feeders' Terry Chen) returns from Shanghai for the funeral, bringing his wife Sarah (My Bloody Valentine's Jaime King) and son Sam (Kickin It Old Skool's Regan Oey) with him. Jason's aunt Mei (Shanghai Baby's Pei Pei Cheng) is not at all fond of Jason's wife, and thinks they've been neglecting Sam's education, so things are a bit tense on the home front. Worse, Sam seems to be seeing things. When Sarah and Sam run across a Chinese pharmacist who is also capable of seeing the hungry ghosts, he remarks that Sam obviously inherited the gift from his mother (who had assumed that a ghost was the pharmacist's assistant). Suddenly, a lot of weirdness in Sarah's life (as well as what she had dismissed her entire life as migraine-induced hallucinations) is explained, but she's not quite ready to buy this ghost thing--until a ghost named Chen Lu (88 Minutes' Vicky Huang) finds Sam to her liking. In order to keep him in the land of the living, Sarah will need to figure out what Chen Lu wants from her, and how to go about getting it.
The plot is a pretty standard Asian ghost story theme (after all, it was the plot of Ring), but there are a million possible variations on the theme. Trevor Markwart (The Outer Limits, at least the 1995 vintage)'s script doesn't take all that many chances, though it emphasizes the mystery angle more than most movies of this sort. Where it fails is, as I expected, in the almost complete lack of characterization. Compared to even more mediocre Asian ghost offerings like Forbidden Floor and Apartment 1303, the characters here are flat, rather than simply shallow. No care or time is spent on making these characters into anything more than glorified vessels for plot points. Still, the plot is pretty nicely executed (if predictable), and some of the acting is decent (Oey is fine, and Jaime King shows, in a few places, why she was thought of as the Next Big Thing briefly a few years back); it's not in any way the best Asian-style ghost story made in the west you'll ever see, but it's certainly not the worst, either. **
RECOMMENDED! 
2009-04-19 - GReat movie, highly recommended to believers and even non-believers of spirits and ghosts! I heard movie is based on true events. Well-developed plot and characters makes this a believable and not so typical scary movie. Watched this movie yesterday, when it premiered on Sci-fi channel. Recorded it on my DVR so to get my family to watch this also. (I watched it twice!). Now I'm looking for the the special features DVD/ making of the movie. If you enjoyed "sixth sense", you should like this one. :)
Great!!
2009-04-11 - I first saw this movie on Sci-fi Channel and the acting and plot really was great! Jaime King was superb in her role as the mother! She is really great in this movie. I hope I see more of her in films. I ordered the dvd from Amazon. I don't usually like spooky films but this one had a really great story to it.
Great horror film!
2008-12-04 - I agree with "Cruzier" (1st review on page) that this is the best horror flick in awhile. This movie will literally have you sitting on the edge of your seat, scared silly, but unable to take your eyes off the screen. Not only is the acting by the cast incredible, but the original plot, sequences of events, and special effects are astounding as well. Because the plot behind this movie is so unique of its kind, the movie will leave you wondering constantly what will happen next which is good because it doesn't fall behind other horror flicks that usually have the same theme like haunted houses and such. Buy one today and it won't disappoint!
Good, Straight Forward Ghost Story 
2008-10-30 - In a society that considers gore and torture porn to be horror, it is really refreshing to see a modern movie featuring a well done ghost story. It's horror with a heart that doesn't get too sweet, never gets too gory, and it's overall a decent movie.
The story is innovative and definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat. I thought I had the twist figured out a quarter into the movie... but that wasn't the case. It's a straight forward but well plotted tale about a mother racing against the clock to save her son from vengeful ghosts, which leads to revelations about her family's past that might be the key to her son's dire situation. It's definitely not a horror masterpiece--I mean, the final shot of the movie was totally unnecessary--but it's a good story with characters that you can easily get invested in and care about.
7/10
