Friday, September 13th not only was it a suspenseful Friday but it also happened to be the night of the Harvest Full Moon. You would expect something bad to happen and things to get crazy. So, for a treat to myself, I went to go see IT Chapter 2 and I have to say that I was not entirely disappointed.
Friday the 13th has always had a spooky connotation and there’s even a horror movie that shares the same name! I’m not a superstitious person, and I’ve never had anything terrible happen on Friday the 13th. So, this time I decided to go out of the way to celebrate the day and have a little bit of fun. I went to go see IT Chapter 2 with an old friend of mine and I had a decently good time. At the beginning of the movie I was relatively annoyed by the people sitting next to me for talking, but as soon as things got extremely suspenseful they shut up and I was happy. Right off the bat, there was some heavy gore which I’m not a huge fan of but it worked well for the atmosphere. The opening was hard to watch because of the intense hate crime against someone who belongs in the LGBTQ+ community and it made me really sad, but immediately after that you saw Pennywise which made for a good opening. The following events would only make sense to someone who has seen Chapter 1 or at least has read the book.
The next hour of the movie involved a look into our characters adult lives and how some of them were exactly the same, some were in bad or good relationships and were living grown up, realistic lives. You get to see every person’s reaction to IT coming back and see every person make the hard decision whether to come back to Maine despite the current circumstances which I will not reveal due to its incredible importance to the plot. The rest of the movie involved a few good laughs and some incredible suspense–including the old lady featured in the first trailer for the movie. That scene was incredibly well put-together. As a viewer, you knew something was wrong with her, but it still made you laugh, hard. The funny thing about laughing in a scary movie is that it puts your guard down and makes the incoming jump scare that much worse. You knew something was wrong but you couldn’t help but laugh and then BAM! This happened a few times, for each adult version of our beloved loser, we had either a funny scene or a really intense scene that makes you curl back into your seat hoping it’ll keep you safe. I was a little disappointed in the ending battle and the resolution that followed. It tied things together pretty nicely, however it was still hard to make sense of a few things and we only got a tiny glimpse of how they went on with their lives. The battle was predictable and honestly a little short for my taste. In the end there was a great allusion to another Stephen King classic and the man himself even had a fantastic cameo. I was happy with the end result.
I thought that the acting was phenomenal and the costuming was well put together. There were a couple of inconsistencies with makeup but that kind of thing is completely unavoidable so it didn’t really bother me much. My favorite actor was Bill Hader, who played the adult version of Richie. He was funny and did a good job at continuing and growing upon Finn Wolfhard’s interpretation of Richie. Our first impression of him was disgusting and funny at the same time but it worked well for the character. This impression continued throughout the movie and it was amazing to watch. He provided most of the very much needed comic relief for such an intense movie.
The casting director, Rich Delia, did a good job at finding actors who fit the general look of the younger characters as well as their ability to continue and grow upon their personalities. I was impressed with his casting, especially since we got a general description of everyone’s future self from Beverly. Her description made it impossible to pick people who didn’t fit without it making sense. The sound department also did a great job. I’ve seen movies which have dialogue which is way too quiet and action that is way too loud. IT didn’t have that problem. I could hear everything fine and didn’t recoil for loud noises. The only problem I had was the visual lighting for the final battle. There were a lot of flashing lights and it made it difficult to see and concentrate on the action. I understand the reason for flashing lights in a horror movie, but there comes a time when it’s too much and too consistent. As a viewer, it makes it hard to watch. The first Blade Runner film was an example of this because it took me 3 tries to watch due to the cinematography that was so dark I kept falling asleep.
All in all, I had a great time and I even had some decent pizza afterward. As I said earlier, I tend to have mild inconveniences on Friday the 13th, which only ended up being the rude people next to me. But all in all the movie was great, I don’t understand why everyone is so disappointed in IT Chapter 2. It was just as scary as Chapter 1 and I expected to not get scared at all. I do have to say that both movies, in my mind are more thrillers than horror movies, minus the intense gore in Chapter 2 which was a little much for me. IT was however, a good movie. I recommend making an effort to go see IT.