Review of It (2017) by Njeri M — 22 Sep 2017

I was excited and looking forward to seeing the first film adaption of It. I had seen the 1990 made-for-TV version (see separate review) with Tim Curry as Pennywise, once when it (no pun intended) came out and again this week.

I was disappointed that the producers opted to target the young "horror/slasher" market, with non-stop scares, swearing and violence. So much so, that the focus of this film is to scare people rather than adapt a potentially interesting story from the 1986 Stephen King novel, "It".

I found this film to be horrific and silly at the same time. I went to see the film based on the story rather than to see a cheap, teen slasher genre flick. Despite some brilliant scares and horrifying scenes revolving around the central antagonist Pennywise The Dancing Clown, the story fell flat especially at the end. This may be largely based on the weak source material.

I have never been a fan of Stephen King, finding his novels imaginative, but with silly premises, typically where some supernatural evil is behind everything (Cujo, The Shining, It, Carrie, Christine, and on and on and on). He's certainly become wealthy producing material that satisfies a certain general audience. However, he's been great at creating some classic characters in most of his books, and Pennywise is no exception. In fact, he may be one of the best!

The departures from the source material are annoying. I found the 1990 version much better for realism of the bond between the children, as well as much better child acting. It engaged the audience far better in the 1st act than this modern film does.

Despite this, young fans of the horror genre will go see this as well as an older crowd driven by nostalgia such as myself. I am no longer looking forward to the upcoming Part 2, yet it is highly likely I will go to see it.