I had the pleasure of seeing the
new adaptation of Stephen King’s It opening weekend and let me just say,
If you’re new here then you should
know that I’m a huge horror fan, especially when it comes to Stephen King. As a
kid, watching the television mini-series of It terrified me like no other. This
is where my fear of clowns first kicked in. Tim Curry delivered a phenomenal
performance as Pennywise, The Dancing Clown, forever making it impossible for
me to walk past storm drains without picturing an evil, red-headed clown
waiting inside to rip my arm of. Thanks for that.
While clowns are #1 on my
list of things I want nowhere near me, I was still incredibly excited for the remake.
I thought the cast looked promising, especially after finding out that Stranger
Things’ Finn Wolfhard was on board because I, like many others, binge watched the shit out of that. I was even more intrigued after they finally announced who would be
taking on the critical role of Pennywise. Now, if you’re just now discovering
Bill Skarsgard then you haven’t been living your life right, fam. Anyone that
was a fan of the Netflix series, Hemlock Grove can tell you that.
Before we jump into the actual
review, let’s go over the basics of Stephen King’s It for those that don’t know
what it’s about. The film is about a group of friends dubbed “The Loser’s Club”
that are being terrorized by an evil clown that’s responsible for the multiple
missing children in the town of Derry, Maine. Seems simple enough; except for
the fact that It isn’t just a clown, it’s an ancient being that transforms into
the thing you fear the most. Much like Freddy Kruger, It feeds off of your fear
and every 27-30 years It returns to wreak havoc.
Unlike the mini-series, the film
only features the first half of the story, focusing on the first time that The
Loser’s Club faces off against It. But fear not, because as the end of the film
suggests, this is only Chapter One so we can count on seeing the Loser’s Club
in the next film, squaring up with It once again in adulthood.
The film is basically a good two hours worth of hallucinatory,
nightmare fuel. We follow the Loser’s Club as they are tormented by Pennywise
throughout the whole film, stalking them and using their worst fears to keep
them at their wit’s ends until it can eventually devour them. It preys on the
children, turning their lives into a nightmarish-fun house where decapitated,
char-broiled children and frightening paintings of disfigured ladies come to
life. One of the more enjoyable elements of the film was the kids’ individual
fears that haunted them. In the novel, King wrote about several ghoulish and
creep-tastic manifestations of “It” that took place. In typical, monster-movie
fashion, the kids encountered a wolfman, which was one of “It’s” most used
forms aside from the clown we all know and love. The corpses of two drowned
children, as well as Frankenstein’s Monster who quite violently rips two of the
town’s bullies into pieces while in the sewers.
Some of the manifestations of “It” stay true to the novel.
For instance, Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) is still haunted by the corpse of his younger brother, Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott),
who we see in the beginning of the film in the notorious storm drain scene.
Beverly (Sophia Lillis), the only girl in the group, is covered in blood after the sink sort
of, spits up on her, covering her and the room. Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer), a hypochondriac, runs
into an incredibly disgusting leper, leaking bodily fluid from literally
everywhere. I’m still not over it.
The film also added a room full of clown dolls, and just
like my boy Richie, I am not down with that.
Aside from being a cocktail composed of every nightmare you’ve
ever had as a child come to life, the film is also a stellar coming-of-age story
about friendship, growth, and exposing just how incredibly shitty adults can
be. Like many of King’s novels, the plot explores how children are often put in
terrible situations set in place by the adults and the world around them. We
see the adults in the film being oblivious and un-caring, cruel and just plain
awful. For example, we see Bill’s dad respond to his obvious grief over his
little brother with hostility, dismissing it completely. We see the adults
witnessing kids being bullied and wandering around on their own and not giving
a shit. Some of the more severe cases involve Beverly’s abusive father and
Eddie’s over-bearing mother who seemingly has a case of Munchausen Syndrome By
Proxy.
That being said, the new Pennywise is still one of the
creepiest clowns to ever grace the screen. There’s no real trick to making him terrifying,
he just is. He’s not blatantly scary like some others within the genre, like
American Horror Story’s Twisty or the huge, grotesque clowns from Killer Klowns
from Outer Space. He just appears to be a man in makeup and a colorful outfit
but there’s still something unnerving about him. Maybe it’s the always present
smile on his face or the bright tufts of red hair, or perhaps it’s the fact
that he has razor-sharp teeth and likes to devour children? I like that they
didn’t make drastic changes in order to make him obviously creepy and it relied
on Skarsgard’s performance alone. While Curry’s performance remains untouched,
his darker take on the character was incredible to see on the big screen. With
the original being a television mini-series, obvious changes had to be made in
order to bring this already larger-than-life character to life on the big
screen. This gave filmmakers the chance to take risks and create bigger, more
elaborate scares that would still resonate with movie-goers. I admire that they
weren’t afraid to make the audience uncomfortable and show the children in
frightening and dangerous situations.
Speaking of making audiences uncomfortable, you could tell
from the reactions of those in the theater that people weren’t expecting to see
Pennywise straight up bite a child’s arm off and then watch him desperately try
to crawl away while profusely bleeding – only to be dragged into a storm drain.
Or to see him slumped over a child with his teeth clamped over his face.
Looking around at the horrified faces of those around me was a little amusing.
The audience would go from be visibly uncomfortable and
screaming one minute, to laughing out loud the next. The humor aspects in the
new adaptation was something I wasn’t really expected and while there’s varying
opinions on how well that worked, it’s something that I really enjoyed. These
kids were a delight to watch and they were truly the heart and soul of this
film. After learning that the filmmakers allowed the kids to have full-creative
freedom over the script and that the majority of the film was improvised, I was
even more thrilled. While there’s only so much depth they can provide for the characters
in two hours, we were still able to be invested in the lives of The Loser’s
Club. The characters were lovable and you cared about what was happening to
them. The lightheartedness fortunately didn’t take away from the plot and was
effective without turning the film into a parody. If you didn’t leave the
theater feeling like a bonafied member of The Loser’s Club, then you can see yourself out. Eddie and his two fanny packs are iconic.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the film, it did raise a lot of
questions. Those that had no prior knowledge of It left theaters a bit confused
as to what they just witnessed. Where did “It” come from? What were those lights at the back of his
throat? What exactly is in store for the next film? I assume this was all done
to keep audiences guessing and to leave room for answers in the sequel, however
this made the film feel a little incomplete. As far as origin stories go, “It’s”
is definitely something to marveled. “It’s” existence dates back to as far as the
creation of man and the universe itself. “It” was created in a universe between
ours and others called the Macroverse and this is the only place the creature
can be defeated with a psychic battle of wits called the “Ritual of Chüd.” According to online
sources, this is actually something that might come into play in the next film,
which will be quite interesting to see on the big screen. Then there’s the
whole ancient turtle that created the universe by spitting up when it had a
stomach ache thing but understandably, that was left out of the film.
There’s also the question about the fate of Henry Bowers. In
the new film, we see him get his ass handed to him and then he takes what seems
to be, fatal fall down the well. In the novel and as seen in the mini-series,
Bowers is manipulated by Pennywise into going after the children and is
ultimately blamed for the murders of the kids mentioned in the film. He’s then
placed in an institution, which “It” breaks him out after he awakens years
later. I’m interested to see how this will play out in the next film and if
they have something entirely different in store for us.
Bottom line: The It remake was
honestly amazing. There’s a reason that it’s received such high praise and why
it’s selling out theaters left and right. It’s wicked fun and deliciously creepy. It's ultimately, a fantastic addition to the Stephen King movie-verse. It was some of the most fun
I’ve had at the movies in a while, I highly recommend it.
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