[yasr_overall_rating]
A group of bullied kids band together when a monster, taking the appearance of a clown, begins hunting children.
It’s difficult to watch a movie objectively when the hype surrounding it is unprecedented. Not since “The Dark Knight,” or “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace,” has a film been so hotly anticipated but with the arrival of director Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name, “It” is finally here. And it is a good film, just not a great one, something I had really hoped it would be. I remember watching the original 1990 TV Mini-Series which starred Tim Curry when it first aired and while it had some good moments, even back then, I knew that because it was made for TV, there would be a lot of content that would not make it to the screen, but Tim Curry is what kept it watchable. The problem both versions suffer from, is what I call the “Freddy Krueger Syndrome.” If you are a horror fan like me, then you know that the earlier Elm Street movies are the best, especially parts 1-3. Why? Because Freddy was kept in the dark, for the most part. When he appeared, he was hidden in the shadows and while you could partly see his face, he was not totally visible, and that is what made him scary. The later films, however, had Freddy appearing on sandy beaches during the day, wearing shades so all that was scary about him, disappeared.
The same thing happens with “It,” the new version and also the 1990 interpretation. The first scene in which we meet Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård), the laughing, demonic clown, he is in a sewer, trying to talk a young boy, Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott), into joining him. Here, he is pretty damn creepy and what he does to Georgie is both terrifying and gut-wrenching. You never want to see a child hurt in any way but this scene completely abandons that idea. The reason Pennywise becomes less scary as the film progresses is that we see him too many times. As with Freddy Krueger, the less we see of him, the scarier he is but when everything is up on the screen to view, your expectations of this supposed terrifying monster, diminishes, especially when you see him during the day. Prolific horror filmmaker Roger Corman, the man responsible for such horror movies as “The Little Shop of Horrors” (1960), “A Bucket of Blood” (1959), and “The Undead” (1957), amongst many others, once said, “Never show your monster in the daylight!” While his so-called horror films of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, were more laughable than scary, he had a point. The problem with so many filmmakers today is that they’ve either never heard that expression or they sincerely believe that they are the exception to the rule. “Jaws” worked because we barely saw the shark, “A Nightmare on Elm Street” worked because we hardly saw Freddy, and the same principle should apply here, the less we see of Pennywise, the scarier he becomes but with each appearance, he slowly comes out of the shadows and at times, even appears in broad daylight. That, is simply not scary.
In the small town of Derry, Maine, every 27 years, people go missing and are never found. Nobody can explain it but word around town amongst the adults is that something evil is the cause of all the disappearances. It is 1989 and Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) and his friends have just finished school and are getting ready to enjoy the summer. The previous year, Bill’s younger brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) mysteriously disappeared and like the missing before him, no trace of his body was ever found. Bill speculates that because the whole town is connected by a series of underground sewers, and that Georgie was last seen peering into a drain, there is the possibility that his body might be somewhere underneath the town. He talks his friends into going into the sewers but when they find the shoe of another missing child, they get scared and leave. Over the summer months, Bill and his friends each begin to experience strange phenomenon in the form of a freakish clown who calls himself Pennywise, that only they can see and Bill realizes that he is the cause of all the disappearances. He and his friends’ experiences worsen as Pennywise uses their deepest, darkest fears against them but when Beverly (Sophia Lillis), the only girl in the group, goes missing, the remaining friends band together and make their way back down into the sewers, to find Pennywise’s lair and to face him once and for all, while trying to overcome their fear of him.
Bill Skarsgård’s interpretation of Pennywise is spot on and he most certainly gives Tim Curry’s personification a run for his money. The reason the movie works much better than it should, is because of the young cast involved. They are the embodiment of wide-eyed, youthful adolescence, surrounded by unspeakable horrors that no child should ever have to experience and as they gradually begin to grow stronger, and reclaim their fearlessness, you are right there along with them, wanting to protect them and make sure that Pennywise gets his comeuppance. The film focuses primarily on the children but we are privy to some adult characters throughout. Beverly lives with her father and it is apparent early on, that he is sexually abusing her. Another child character, Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer), lives with his mother and she has spent years making him think he is sick and cannot go outside, forcing him to always stay with her, while another father bullies his teenage son, a bully himself towards other kids and you find yourself wanting to get away from the grown-ups to spend more time with the children. Initially, as Pennywise enters each of their lives, understandably they grow increasingly afraid of him, and this reflects their own fears, Beverly’s father, Eddie’s mother, but when they finally regain confidence in themselves, and make a stand against Pennywise, they are also confronting the horrors in their home life, and overcoming them.
I never read Stephen King’s novel so I cannot make the obligatory comparison of book vs. film but this new celluloid incarnation is worth the price of admission. For those with Coulrophobia, a fear of clowns, you might want to give this one a miss but horror fans in general, might walk away, as I did, wishing for more. The casual moviegoer might have more fun with it and with the next chapter in the series, where we meet the kids all grown up, almost a guarantee after this weekend’s undoubtedly huge haul, I am very interested to see how the child characters handle Pennywise as adults. Roll on Chapter 2.
In theaters Friday, September 8th
