When children begin to disappear in the town of Derry, Maine, neighborhood kids band together to square off against Pennywise, an evil clown whose history of murder and violence dates back for centuries.
Stars Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard
Year 2017
YES. Yes it does. As horror movies generally go, we all know that they don’t all usually float. IT isn’t all as perfect as perfect could have been though. I’ll start with the high marks.
Kudos abroad to the cast! When you care about a character it really makes the story worth while. To say that I cared about these kids is maybe an understatement. I even teared up a tad bit at times, which is not too uncommon for me, but very unexpected for this. I also laughed, which is a great transcending quality to achieve in this genre. They really played into the kids quirks and comradery, which is good if you want an audience to feel something for them. It was almost like watching a pack of Spielberg kids or the crew from Stranger Things. The chemistry they showed when together sold it outright as it should have.
My hat is off to Mr. Skarsgard. He had enormous red shoes to fill and fill them he did. His adaptation was what you really want it to be, no knocking Tim Curry. The 90’s classic is a mainly a classic to me because Curry was so great in the role. He gave it a hilarity though that took away from what I wanted it to be as a horror. I wanted so terribly to fear Pennywise. This version really gave him a much darker personae.
Another really high mark goes to art direction and atmospheric intention (music/sound). I truly loved all of the creepy horrortastic imagery throughout. There’s nothing better to get you in that mood then when they choose the right set and have the right music. It’s honestly most pertinent to get the adrenaline flowing and reactions necessary.
Alright… now I try to be as honest as I can be and don’t blow smoke where there is none. I won’t lie here. It does have some low marks in my humble opinion. I’ll start with adaptation. From reading then seeing many of them I’ve really learned to separate the two. There never seems to be one that comes very close that I’ve seen, so I don’t ever expect it. I won’t go into detail and don’t expect that all of you reading this have actually read IT. I’ll just say that as far as I am in the book it doesn’t go too far off the rails, but some things are not exactly as they are in written form. Does it actually matter? Well… it might to some picky folks that really like them to follow close, but in the grand scale I don’t think it does. I actually think it’s refreshing when they differ because it’s almost like you get more content, which is nice.
My biggest criticism and criticism of many is that IT gives itself away too often. When watching a scary movie we need those lulling moments to get us prepped and ready for another scare or crazy moment. This one was so full of crazy moments that there was no prepping. The monster is so often revealed that by the end of it you are sort of used to it therefore lessening the quality of fright. I really loved some of these moments, but they needed to tone it down just a tad. Other than that I really will be viewing it again as IT was as fun as going through a haunted house minus the walking and with a storyline! Enjoy my fright-loving friends in the kicking off of the best movie watching season of them all!