"You'll float too, when it happens to you..."
...which puts me in mind of a recent tweet from the master himself.
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| In the trades of horror and wit, he ain't no jack. |
While I at first interpreted that last line as a reference to The 100, which King's a fan of (and that's a reason why you need to get into that show immediately if you haven't already!), I didn't realize there was another secret meaning - the catchphrase for this movie, the sinister slogan of the dreaded IT himself, Pennywise. That's mostly because I'm very new to the world of IT, having not yet read the book or seen the 1990 miniseries. This 2017 movie is my first time seeing any of IT in any way, shape, or form, and for my first time, it's a damn good one, bolstered by terrific child actors playing the members of the Losers' Club, beautifully terrifying work from Mama director Andy Muschietti (fun fact: IT takes on the form of Mama herself to scare one of the kids, implying a possible shared universe?), and Bill Skarsgård at Heath Ledger's Joker or Beetlejuice levels of unrecognizable behind tons of makeup and some CGI (though he was apparently able to work a lazy eye into his performance.)
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| "Welcome to the Losers' Club, asshole!" |
For those of you who, like me, haven't seen the old miniseries or read King's novel (but maybe absorbed some of the details through osmosis), I'll endeavor to keep this spoiler-free. What I can tell you, however, is that Muschietti's second movie, his highest-profile yet, manages to be an even more effective love letter to the horror genre. IT combines the off-kilter cinematographic influence of Guillermo del Toro (who executive produced Mama for Muschietti) and references to just about every horror story that came between the original novel and today and can claim any level of influence from IT. On that list, I can name a lot. Namely, my own Red Rain novels, but especially the first one. Though I claim Supernatural and Buffy and The Amazing Spider-Man as my primary inspirations, this one was for sure a secret inspiration I never even knew about, with its heavy use of aquatic imagery and a killer who proves virtually impossible to stop because he's got secret ways of sneaking into your life at the worst possible times.
For more established works referenced here, I've got tons as well. The Alien franchise (maybe not so much the original since it predates even the novel, but Aliens for sure), Signs, some other King-based works (like the movie Stand By Me, especially since the original "Body" novella, like IT, takes place in Derry, Maine), The Dark Tower (the secret origin of the Deadlights which get put to terrifying use in one key scene), Super 8, a bit of The Goonies, a trip outside the horror genre with Everything, Everything, back into horror and surrealism with Twin Peaks and its own many derivatives, and of course Stranger Things, that great big homage to all things 80s, Spielberg, and King (which I still haven't seen yet, yeah yeah, I know, blasphemy!) Appropriately, this adaptation sets the beginning of the big old story, the kids' first encounter with Pennywise, in 1989, setting the stage for a second film (coming in a couple of years' time or so) which will likely take place in 2016 because IT likes to run on a 27-year cycle of death and destruction.
Why IT does that, though, isn't quite explained. I mean, sure, a lot of the best horror movies don't explain everything - Alien comes strongly to mind, and I say this as one of the few who loved Prometheus for its philosophical implications and how it planted seeds for explanations of how the Xenomorphs came to be. But I still feel like we could do with some concrete explanations behind IT's existence. Not so much the symbolism, though - that's pretty obvious, the personification of fear and being basically a vampire and turning all the people of Derry inexplicably evil. But giving us some backstory as to why IT is even a thing, à la The Secret History of Twin Peaks, would be welcome.
In addition, the characters could have done with a bit more work. Nothing against the actors giving it their all as the Losers' Club, but in some cases, they had very little to work with. I'm especially looking at Stan, the most underwritten of the bunch - most of his characterization revolves around him being the one Jewish kid, worried about bungling his upcoming bar mitzvah. Marginalized people in general don't get the best deal in this movie as far as character depth goes - Mike, the one black kid, doesn't get to do much either (owing to him not joining the Losers' Club till about halfway through the story), and Beverly's character arc heavily involves her having to deal with her creepy, pedophilic dad. Meanwhile, there's Pennywise, who's just a little too hard to take seriously at times because of the fluid rules behind his power set (I mean, his floating and constant presence in the water are one thing, but the scene where he gets into a series of photos on a slide projector, and then literally jumps out of the screen, was just too over the top) and because as creepy as Bill Skarsgård's performance is, it's also ruined at times by his line delivery, which can range from ungodly screeching to strange, nigh-incomprehensible slurring. Unpredictable he may have been, but I think a more unified performance style would have made him easier to fear.
Though, to be fair, he had no problem scaring the child actors for real on set.
As King adaptations go, this version of IT is truly one of the best out there, and with it comes a significant scare factor. Though very reliant on jump scares, this movie is also very scarily psychological in nature, dealing heavily with some troubling topics - including bullying, gay-bashing (not that there are any explicitly queer characters, though "faggot" is used very often by the bullies), slut-shaming, the aforementioned pedophilic dad, and of course coulrophobia. All of those trigger warnings apply for anyone going into this movie.
I'll give this movie a B+, and I'll only go into the sequel with trepidation because I'm pretty sure the adult-focused segment of the adaptation will lose a lot of the charm of this film's 80s nostalgia and relatable early-adolescent moments.
Till next time, Pinecones...
In addition, the characters could have done with a bit more work. Nothing against the actors giving it their all as the Losers' Club, but in some cases, they had very little to work with. I'm especially looking at Stan, the most underwritten of the bunch - most of his characterization revolves around him being the one Jewish kid, worried about bungling his upcoming bar mitzvah. Marginalized people in general don't get the best deal in this movie as far as character depth goes - Mike, the one black kid, doesn't get to do much either (owing to him not joining the Losers' Club till about halfway through the story), and Beverly's character arc heavily involves her having to deal with her creepy, pedophilic dad. Meanwhile, there's Pennywise, who's just a little too hard to take seriously at times because of the fluid rules behind his power set (I mean, his floating and constant presence in the water are one thing, but the scene where he gets into a series of photos on a slide projector, and then literally jumps out of the screen, was just too over the top) and because as creepy as Bill Skarsgård's performance is, it's also ruined at times by his line delivery, which can range from ungodly screeching to strange, nigh-incomprehensible slurring. Unpredictable he may have been, but I think a more unified performance style would have made him easier to fear.
Though, to be fair, he had no problem scaring the child actors for real on set.
As King adaptations go, this version of IT is truly one of the best out there, and with it comes a significant scare factor. Though very reliant on jump scares, this movie is also very scarily psychological in nature, dealing heavily with some troubling topics - including bullying, gay-bashing (not that there are any explicitly queer characters, though "faggot" is used very often by the bullies), slut-shaming, the aforementioned pedophilic dad, and of course coulrophobia. All of those trigger warnings apply for anyone going into this movie.
I'll give this movie a B+, and I'll only go into the sequel with trepidation because I'm pretty sure the adult-focused segment of the adaptation will lose a lot of the charm of this film's 80s nostalgia and relatable early-adolescent moments.
Till next time, Pinecones...
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| #FeedTheRightWolf |
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| Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always. |
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