IT Review
R: for violence/horror, bloody images, and for language
Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, RatPac Entertainment
2 Hrs and 15 Minutes
Director: Andy Muschietti
Writer: Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, Gary Dauberman
Cast: Jaeden Lieberher, Wyatt Oleff, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer, Chosen Jacobs, Nicholas Hamilton, Bill Skarsgård
INTRO: Last month the film adaptation of Stephen King’s "The Dark Tower", was released and that was endlessly mediocre if not just flat out terrible. But we can all agree the Stephen King film adaptation that we were all gearing up to see was IT. Not only is "IT" one of King’s most popular novels, but it's one of King’s personal favorites. It has been 27 years since the miniseries premiered on ABC, and just like the mythology of Pennywise, the story of "IT" has returned to haunt a new generation. The only difference is that this time Pennywise has gone Hollywood. After being in development hell for over eight years, we finally have this long anticipated adaptation finally stepping from the small screen to the silver screen, and this is only part 1 of a two part story. But hey, if we needed a new reason to get stricken with Coulrophobia, "IT" would be……it.
When children begin to disappear in the town of Derry, Maine, a group of young kids are faced with their biggest fears when they square off against an evil clown named Pennywise, whose history of murder and violence dates back for centuries.
THE GOOD: For the miniseries being a dated 90s primetime movie that was TV14, it was a genius move for director Andy Muschietti and WB to push this film adaptation with an R rating. While others might think how come this couldn't be PG13 especially with the cast being children? Well, you can’t fully experience a horrific Stephen King tale without an R rating. "Stand By Me" had an R rating when it came out. Shoot even "Dreamcatcher" which was a terrible movie had an R rating.
Besides, not every movie featuring kids should be geared towards kids. The movie is about a killer clown who eats children. How in the hell are you going to pass that off with a PG13 rating? From the very beginning of the film, Muschietti fearlessly abides by King’s work with gory imagery by actually showing Georgie gruesomely getting his arm eaten off. There's no cut dissolve to save him for the film’s opening sets up the terrifying content that is to come and also says, “If you thought this was a kids movie, get them the hell out of this theater.”
Out of every horror movie released this year, the best thing I appreciate “IT” for doing is not only relying on jump scares but also relying on terrifying imagery. That’s what Muschietti’s previous horror flick, “Mama” did so well. He finds the best way to scare his audience without resulting to cheap thrills because honestly, terrifying visuals is another technique to getting audience members screaming. Whereas the horror level of the miniseries (if watched today) is at a pretty low number, this cranks the terrifying imagery level from a 4 to an 11. The movie prospers from a wide variation of scary sequences of each kid getting haunted by Pennywise in creatively frightening ways that will make you scream just by the visuals. I found myself yelling far too many times to count just because of how frightening the images were. It brought me back to when I saw "Coraline" in 2009 where a lot of the film’s content freaked me out just because of the imagery displayed on screen.
Bill Skarsgård delivers a great performance as Pennywise. Though he pops up in the film in small doses throughout until the story focuses primarily on him, he makes every appearance effective with an insane amount of charisma and unexpected creepiness. The best way to describe his incarnation of Pennywise is simply as if Tim Curry’s Pennywise made love with Heath Ledger’s Joker and gave birth to a clown that balance the line between both scary and surprising. Skarsgård does a great job making Pennywise a scary horror villain who puts him in the ranks as one of the most recent terrifying horror villains to date. He’s like Freddy Kruger if he was a clown and instead of targeting high school students he targets anyone 15 and under.
Where a lot of Hollywood films nowadays that take place in the 80s exploit the music that was popular at the time, this is centered more of the terribleness of children during that period. It has the classic 1980s tropes of how terrible kids used to be. Granted kids are still ruthless little shits today no matter where you go but in this, they are mean, and it feels authentic. There are seven kids we follow in the movie but the main boys in “The Loser Club” all have natural chemistry together when introduced in the first act of the film.
Out of all the kids, the one who I enjoyed the most watching was Finn Wolfhard (Mike of "Stranger Things") who goes from being the Quagmire of the group (for he makes a numerous amount of sex jokes without saying—
) to becoming the Deadpool of the group halfway through since he makes nothing but self-aware jokes that almost becomes meta for he speaks to whatever the audience is thinking about.
THE BAD: I swear I’m not a stickler for post production in film, but "IT" has to be one of the most messiest movies I’ve seen in a long time in terms of editing. It never becomes "Suicide Squad" level atrocious, but the film isn’t spliced together very well. This is a 135-minute movie, and it constantly moves either too fast or too slow that you can never distinct which act the film is currently at. Some of the ADR work is horrendously done, there is a numerous amount of continuity errors, and most of all it utilizes music so poorly that it disrupts both the movie’s tone and its pacing.
For example, in the movie, Ben has a secret love for NKOTB which is a brief running gag through the film. The joke works at first, but when it's bought up again for a double tap, it becomes so awkwardly unfunny that it's just downright painful. This joke is bogged down by unnecessary inclusion of music. This is one of many instances the film poorly utilizes music into the film. I’m not going to give away many examples of how silly it becomes but all I have to say is when you have a sequence of kids cleaning up a room of blood with an upbeat pop song playing in the background, you might have this reaction when it comes on:
Pennywise and all of the other terrifying imagery are the main, but unfortunately, that threat feels overshadowed by some of the actual actors in the film. Shit everyone in the town of Derry is fucking insane which only makes the kids likable by default. The parents are child abusers, the pharmacist is a creepy pedophile, and the bullies are murderous sociopaths. You have the bully Henry, carving an H into Ben’s belly and you see it full on. That scene right there is one of the most evillest deeds that happens, and Pennywise doesn't even do it, and he eats children for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Honestly, if you were to go out in this fucked up town of Derry, you would probably prefer to get eaten by the clowns than end up in the hands of the teenagers or adults. Death by clown doesn’t sound that bad now, does it?
As I said before, the film initially follows seven kids who all come together to fight against this demonic clown. Well, you only get to know four. While the kids in the miniseries were serviceable, they clicked together organically. After a particular time in this, the kids’ friendships go from feeling natural to feeling forced especially once some other children become part of their crew. The only characters you truly get to know are Billy, Ben, Beverly, Ritchie, and a bit of Eddie mainly because of his delusional mother. You don’t get to really know Stanley or Mike mainly because there are way too many kids to count. I mean for God’s sake it's not only that Mike is the only black kid in the movie, but it opens with him AND HE DOESN’T POP BACK IN UNTIL 45 MINUTES AFTER THAT FIRST SCENE TO WHERE HE’S INTRODUCED. Thank God this film doesn’t take place in South Park because they made this kid Token as fuck.
LAST STATEMENT: Granted it has a great ensemble of talented child actors who are haunted by a killer performance by Bill Skarsgård — and as amazingly director Andy Muschietti pulls off terrifying imagery that would give the strongest mind a fear of clowns, "IT" (Chapter 1) suffers from poor pacing, an inconsistent tone, and way too many editing issues involving continuity and inclusion of music to give a full on recommendation.
Rating: 2.5/5 | 56%
Super Scene: Ritchie and clowns.
