They Wait

Director Ernie Barbarash makes judicious use of CGI trickery -- in one key scene, he cleverly shocks his audience into laughing -- but at heart, he's an old-school traditionalist when it comes to scary stuff.

There are elements of a good fright flick and intriguing ghost story in They Wait. It's too bad that they are overshadowed by all the bad aspects " terrible dialogue and cheesy special effects and makeup.

Initially promising for its attempt to situate Asian supernatural motifs within a North American context, They Wait is itself too derivative of its own movie ancestors to yield fresh scares.

The plot pieces all fit together nicely, the acting is fair and the scary stuff is well executed.