Review of It (2017) by Brandon S — 01 Oct 2017

Be forewarned, what follows is actually closer to an analysis than a simple review, concerning as it does the first of a two part adaptation of Stephen Kings 1300+ page, mega masterpiece and my personal favourite novel not just from the master horror writer, but possibly my favourite book ever, so there was always going to be a lot for me to say about it, I was always going to inspect not just every scene and moment but every detail, every fraction of this movie in comparison to the novel, just so you are prepared for what is to come.

So you have my permission to either jump ship now (i wouldn't blame you, this is going to be fucking indulgent at best, meandering at worst) or if you're in, then abandon hope all ye who enter here, i'll try and keep it all shorter than the book on which the movie is based.

So, there I was, sitting in the exact middle of the Imax Odeon screen in Greenwich, the movie that I had been anticipating possibly more than any other movie in my 28 years of cinema going aside from Ghostbusters 2 in 1989 (which funny enough is when this movie is set) a movie I had poured over every production photo, every tiny morsel of info, I sat nervously stuffing salted caramel popcorn into my mouth which was a terrible choice of cinema food, a piece got stuck in my throat and I had to run to the loo, stick my fingers down my throat and chunder it loose, after the ordeal I staggered back into the screen room, acidic vom taste in my mouth, a sat down and tried to wash the taste down with grossly overpriced cinema coke, and then it began.

Of course it all begins with the already iconic "storm drain scene", which most people will be aware of from the now iconic (but hugely fucking flawed) Tim Curry starring miniseries, this whole opening portion of the movie is goddamn fucking perfect, every beat is right, every detail, the flourishes that director Andy Muschietti graces the movie with are beautiful, the dread filled and foreboding way that the smiley face poor little Georgie draws on the window pane's condensation fades away is chilling as hell, and theres a touch of Spielberg in Georgie running through the rain chasing his paper boat (the object of his doom) as it sails along in the rain, and the scene between the doomed child and Pennywise The Dancing Clown, beckoning him to the storm drain, is for me already one of the most chilling, gut wrenching scenes in a horror movie this decade.

Mention must first go to Bill Skarsgard as the new iteration of Pennywise, he is phenomenal, it doesnt even feel like there is a human actor under there sometimes, the choices he makes in the performance and the little touches are genius (the drool hanging off his chin, that voice) the way the jolly facade briefly drops at one point is terrifying, you can almost see this animal underneath, the feral, dirty thing that only wants this little boys flesh, and the payoff to the scene is, well, even the book was slightly less cruel and horrific, it's unusual to see a child get killed so blatantly on screen, being the last true taboo there is, but the way they play events out here is gut wrenching and even upsetting.

Sadly the movie is never this good, scary, close to the book or effective again. But, let me say out of the gate, I love this film, it's great, an epic, fun, funny, bloody, sweet, thrilling and massively entertaining blast, but it's just not the book.

This movie opts for more of a spooky, funhouse rollercoaster ride through Kings haunting, terrifying, sad, ballsy, and deeply meaningful novel, to put it another way, I was hoping with this two parter to get the Godfather part 1+2 of horror movies, but instead I got the KillBill Volume 1+2 of horror, still great, but not the more powerful, raw and affecting epic I was hoping for.

The thing that creates the most trouble out of the gate, is changing the setting from the late 50's of the kids stuff in the book to the late 80's, and the adult portion's from the mid 80's to the mid, whatever the fuck this lost, decadent, horrible nightmare of a decade is referred to.

This change does bring events in to my nostalgic childhood of 1989 but it guts out a gigantic chunk of the book's essence, so so much is lost, like the pop cultural references from the 1950's and so much of what the ear informs on the plot and the way the kids are.

But the biggest and most hard to take loss is the parade of 50's movie monsters Pennywise turns into, creatures that haunted the nightmares of kids of the time like The Wolfman, Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula, The Creature From The Black Lagoon and The Mummy (although he does make a quick appearance at the climax) all of these cool forms are gone, replaced by apparitions that are effectively creepy (the woman in the painting is nightmare fuel) but far less exciting or cool than what could have been, in fact the only other form that remains from the book is the leper, which here is rendered enjoyably grotesque but not particularly scary, whereas the scene in the book is skin crawling (the leper asks Eddie if he would like a blowjob when he appears from under the porch, here he just appears and chases after Eddie, blah!).

Why Muschietti didint think it was unbelievably exciting to indulge in a creature that is not just one monster but can be any monster, is beyond me, it's the main bugbear for me and one that no amount of overpriced cinema coke will wash down the bitter taste of.

On the other hand, they nail the late 80's, I was there so, id know, the feel, the atmosphere, the details like the rising popularity of hiphop, New Kids On The Block, Henry Bowers mullet, kids playing in places they shouldn't, a raw unrequited infatuation with THAT girl who makes you're tummy feel funny for some reason, the fear, excitement, adventure of being a kid at that time, and the allure and terror of the influence of horror movies of the time around the edges of everyday events (posters for A Nightmare On Elm Street 5, Beetlejuice and Gremlins are seen) Streetfighter at the arcade, a Walkman.

Even that fear of going somewhere in you're house that scares you, in my case up stairs to fetch my sisters doll from a darkened room for her whilst we were sitting down watching "Salem's Lot" with my dad (yep, people didnt give a shit about kids in the 80's) in 1988, strangely enough the same year that Georgie meets his fate, although I fared much better thankfully, I still have all my limbs.

The 80's extends to the feel of the movie too, it evokes perfectly movies like The Monster Squad, Poltergeist and A Nightmare On Elm Street beautifully, I love the way this movie brings back that sense of gory funhouse enjoyment of 80's horror movies to the extent that it is one of those movies, id say that more than any other one of the dozens of 80's homageing movies or tv shows of the last decade (including Stranger Things) only The Guest and this film has captured the true feeling and tone of those films without feeling fake.

The other sort of movies from that era this movie most feels spiritually in tune with are kids adventure films like The Goonies (and this movie is pretty much a dark horror version of The Goonies) Explorers and Stand By Me especially, it potently remids one of the times when kids movies were more raw and scary, more true to how kids can be (rude, foulmouthed, uncontrollable and obnoxious) how much less safe and sterilised those films were, it feels like the return to those sort of kids adventure flicks that Super 8 wanted to be but fumbled, and Stranger Things was but to a lesser extent, in fact I see this being a high watermark horror flick for kids now, like what Poltergeist was to us, a kind of gateway drug horror to darker r-rated thrills, and proper, edgier kids adventure with the stabilisers off, and for that I love it most.

Speaking of the kids, one of the movies strongest suits is the child cast, The Losers Club was always going to be the most important element (more than Pennywise even) and they fucking nailed it big time, not since the aforementioned Goonies or Stand By Me have kids felt this much like actual kids, in fcat this is the best kids ensemble since those films, they're so good that in 20 years time they'll all be brought back for retrospectives on the movie.

Best of the bunch is the positively glowing Sophia Lillis as Beverley Marsh, an instant star if ever I saw one, she is amazing, tough, lovely and cool as hell the only false note is the strange choice to make her a damsel in distress at the climax, which is a terribly regressive thing to do to the only girl of the group and pissed me off if im honest.

Jeremy Ray Taylor is simply perfect, he may be smaller than I imagine the character to be, but he's Ben Hanscom through and through, sweet, warm and lovable and exuding the decency and good nature of the character beautifully.

The brilliantly named Finn Wolfhard (should be an action star when her grows up with that name) is also the perfect Richie "Trashmouth" Tozier, he's more harsh and a fair bit more obnoxious than the character in the book, but he nails it, he's the constant source of the movies surprisingly plentiful laughs (this film is really damn funny) he's a hilarious, foul mouthed delight.

Jack Dylan Grazer is the other source of much hilarity as hypochondriac Eddie Kaspbrak, he's the Eddie of the book but with a bit more sass and mouth to him that makes him the perfect foil for Richie.

Jaeden Liberher is a fine Bill Denbrough, he projects a sheer likeability and inner strength that is integral to Bill, plus he nails the stutter, but in changing the nature of Bills journey (in the book Georgies body in found and it sets Bill off on a quest for revenge, here Georgie is never found so it instead becomes for Bill a search for his missing brother) they rob Bill of much of his nobility and bravery, and the directness of his, and other Losers mission to outright kill this monster, is gone, instead it's a bit more uncertain what they hope to achieve by going unarmed into the haunted house on Neibolt Street, also we see that Georgie is in no way going to turn up alive unless the film pulls a bizzare, shark jumping plot turn, so we're left knowing more than Bill, making his story a bit dramatically uninteresting.

Chosen Jacobs does what he can with what he's given as Mike Hanlon, but the treatment of his character, the only African American of the group, is troubling, in the book he is the scholar character who delves into the history of the curse town of Derry (more of this rich, disturbing backstory would be more than welcome in the seocnd part please) they instead give his characteristics to Ben, leaving him a sort of dramatic vacuum, even his early set up of an arc (with the bolt gun) is stolen by Bill, and the horrific racial abuse met out to him by psycho bully Henry Bowers (Nicolas Hamilton, like an evil River Phoenix, boiled down to being just a one note bully, he's still a memorable screen bully and sometimes scarier than Pennywise) is toned down massively, robbing him of his generational struggle with the racial issues of America that are still at large and would have been very relevant and, with his joining with the white Losers, very positive element for these sad post Trump times, a sad missed opportunity.

Wyatt Oleff is the real weak link overall as milquetoast Stan Uris, but maybe that suits the character, and really thats the way he's written, he gives a decent enough performance but leaves the smallest impact of the gang.

In terms of performances, once again I must go into Bill Skarsgards Pennywise, he puts on a show of a performance, a wild, unhinged thing, incredibly strange and visually nightmarish presence that pops up every so often like a cackling, malevolent jack in a box, he more than matches Curry's towering role with a portrayal that's just as iconic.

Back to the various changes made to the text, one of the other biggest losses is aforementioned the rich and dark backstory of Derry, told in episodic flashbacks in the book and almost totally ommited here aside from some choice references (a mural of The Bradley Gang Shootout, a brilliantly crafted scare built around "The Kitchener Ironwork's Explosion" from the book that claims 88 kids lives) that imaginative detail would have lent an even more epic, expansive scope to the movie and the loss of these touches is a shame, maybee next time.

Other changes are to the almost science fictiony fantasy madness from the books duel climax (the kid Losers and the grown up Losers going back to the sewers is intercut, almost like psychic time travel) no turtle gods or giant spiders here im afraid.

But the climax is still big and impressive in a way that modern horror never is, with a real big budget blockbuster feel that is the opposite of the Bulmhouse generation, this is epic, expansive and ambitious horror stuff.

It feel like an event film. So yeah overall, despite all the painful omissions and changes, this is a great movie, a big, fun, scary, funhouse horror ride with great characters and performances, terrific direction, gorgeous cinematography from Park Chan Wooks cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung giving it a look that is far more rich and textured than any other horror around, and a beautiful and often perfectly judged score by Benjamin Wallfisch, indeed this is a horror movie of unusual craft and care.

And with the addition of the second part we could end up with a genre landmark, and a classic, the second aprt could bring home the many parts that make this not quite the full fat experience I hoped for, but im exited for a hugely ambitious two part epic genre flick to be on my dvd shelves, hopefully in even longer cuts, or even cut together as one monster four + hour film.

I love thsi film, despite my many reservations.