First of all, I have to admit that I LOVE reading Stephen King’s books and will gladly sit down and read through as many of his books all day long. So when I heard the recently released movie adaptation (the second adaptation, actually) of King’s suggested to be his most famous and epic novel, IT, was coming out this September, I was so excited! A scary movie that actually looked like it had a compelling story and characters, and an opportunity to get away from studying for midterms and writing papers? Sold.
My friend and I promised to have a movie date and go see IT together, preferably after the first weekend it came out, to avoid the crowds on the opening weekend.
While I was watching the movie, a story about 6 outcasts growing up in the fictional town of Derry in the 1980s handling with the disappearance of several local children and the emergence of a demonic entity, I realized watching this particular film was one experience I would never forget. I remembered watching the Tim Curry version (from the 1990’s) way back when I was about 15, but it was just okay to me. The clown wasn’t scary enough for me to have nightmares, the execution of the film didn’t appeal to me enough to remember it until now, and it felt so long to a 15-year teenage girl who hadn’t even started reading the original novel. After a few years, when I had grown up some more and enjoyed reading King’s books more, I was more excited to see this movie for the story.
While watching the movie (and snacking on popcorn, gummy candy and chocolate), I made some mental observations of the movie:
(Left: Tim Curry as Pennywise, Right: Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise)
1. This is weird but I actually thought the appearance of Pennywise was kind of adorable AT FIRST. I mean, those buck teeth are pretty goofy. Pennywise manages to transform from a slightly goofy and creepy clown living in the sewer to a demented and COMPLETELY terrifying eldritch abomination. Tim Curry was a funny creepy clown to me, but this version of Pennywise felt like both childish and disturbing at the same time. Whoever made Bill Skarsgard into a terrifying demon should be acclaimed.
2. The film was unintentionally funny at some times, but this can be subjective to any audience.
3. I appreciated the fact that IT did not decide to shill out jump scares like candy through the run time like many modern horror films recently do, (there were a couple of jump scares that managed to scare me, though.).
4. I really liked the humor and light-hearted banter throughout the film. It felt more like a 80’s movie about children going through a period of growing up that manages to be dark and funny at the same time. Rather than being 2 hours of continuous grim violence and slaughter fests where you can feel fatigued from all the doom and gloom, the film takes some breaks to laugh at the pre-teen bantering and smile with the heart-felt moments shared between the main characters.
5. I really appreciated the writing of the characters and how the people who worked on the film treated the characters like real people and didn’t make them flat, vapid, one-note characters set up to be unlikeable to the audience so you wouldn’t feel anything when they were brutally killed off. I noted that the film expanded a couple of the children’s back stories (specifically Mike with his early trauma of having his parents die in a house fire). It actually felt like the 6 main children and other secondary characters developed and went through changes, and contributed to the story in the movie. We listen to six life stories in the film and go along with them with the awkward journey of growing up in a harsh and cruel world.
(From left to right: the main characters, Stanley, Eddie, Mike, Bill, Beverly and Ben.)
6. Beverly’s abusive dad was more terrifying and nauseating than Pennywise in some sense because a demonic evil posing as a clown stalking children wouldn’t happen in real life BUT a sexually abusive father who is preoccupied with his child’s sexuality would sadly happen too often in real life. In some scenes, it can be so easy to think that the father was the real monster in the film, not Pennywise.
7. There were several differences between the film and the original novel, which made sense because the novel is such a doorstopper that it would be impossible to stick to each detail. Normally I would not be happy if adaptations decided to radically change the story from the original material like many movies do with books, but I found that some of the children’s manifested fears (Ben’s being a beheaded child compared to a mummy in the novel, and Stan’s being a creepy and distorted flutist compared to two drowned boys in the novel) and Patrick’s death were more scary to me compared to what happened in the original novel. One difference between the novel and the movie that I am glad for, however, is that the movie decided not to film a very controversial and pretty much unfilmable scene in the book where somewhere near the climax of the novel, the six children, who are aged between 11 and 13 years old, bond in a rather unorthodox way.
8. The acting was good, especially Sophia Lillis (Beverly), as we could sense her feelings of despair with the false rumors of her promiscuity, the bullying ensuing, and being terrified of her abusive father.
9. There were some emotional moments in the film, mostly involving the death of Bill’s younger brother, Georgie. I appreciated that the film attempted to make the characters human and handle with the subject of mortality and loss. I have siblings and if one of them disappeared or died suddenly, I would feel like Bill, really.
Now this may sound a bit weird that I’m a huge horror movie fan but I really appreciate the rare films who manage to scare me since it shows that the film is really well-written and can manage to scare people without relying on jump scares and other overused horror tropes. I wouldn’t recommend this for anyone who has a very high fear of clowns though.
I noted that after the film was over that it felt so similar to another of King’s classic stories and an acclaimed film itself, Stand by Me. Both stories are coming of age stories with dark themes concerning with loss of innocence and mortality that also manages to be heart-warming at the same time. So hence the idea for this title of this review: It, a modern Stand by Me.
Would I watch this film again? The short answer is YES (in fact, I actually watched it again shortly afterwards). Character development, beautiful and interesting cinematography, dark themes and a compelling coming of age story with a terrifying antagonist? Totally a movie worth watching for the experience and the story.
The only major downside of the film is that it’s only the first part of the whole story but you bet that I’ll be waiting with a ticket to the second part in 2019!
Sources for photos: