Review of It (2017) by Justin T — 13 Oct 2018

My history with IT is a long and meandering affair. I watched the 1990's IT while I was in my late teens, cringing at the dated special effects but realizing that there was something special there. Loving Tim Curry's performance, of course.

Fast-forward to my mid-twenties, and I'm reading the lengthy tome by Stephen King. Devouring pages, composing scenes and characters in my mind as I finished the entire book in a single weekend.

Last September I was sitting in a dark theater, nearly thirty years old, and thrilled with the excitement of watching this modern depiction of a book that I had come to love.

And it did not disappoint.

This film stays as true to the source material as it possibly can, and for that I am grateful. I'm also grateful for the things that were left out of the movie or changed altogether. I firmly believe that IT is a modernized, somewhat sanitized, version of one of my favorite horror stories.

I think that the casting was very well done, though Jeremy Ray Taylor looks much too young in my opinion. He did a great job portraying Ben, however. Sophia Lillis was excellent, and Finn Wolfhard did a great job playing a less reserved and more comical character than his role in Stranger Things.

My biggest complaint is that some of the CGI looks incredibly bad. Most of the time Pennywise and the various visions are at least passable, but certain scenes do not hold up to modern expectations. The scene where Pennywise crawls out of the projection screen is laughably awful, and the leper looks like something out of a budget haunted house.

Speaking of budget haunted house, the decrepit home on Neibolt Street is very obviously a set piece and looks contrived.

That said, those are very inconsequential faults in an otherwise great film. I'm pleased with the outcome, and am very much looking forward to the second installment.