It
Directed by: Andy Muschietti
Written by: Chase Palmer & Cary Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman
Starring: Jaeden Lieberher, Sophia Lillis, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hamilton, Owen Teague, Jackson Robert Scott, Stephen Bogaert, Stuart Hughes, Mollie Jane Atkinson, Steven Williams
Drama/Horror – 135 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 6 Sep 2017
Written by: Chase Palmer & Cary Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman
Starring: Jaeden Lieberher, Sophia Lillis, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hamilton, Owen Teague, Jackson Robert Scott, Stephen Bogaert, Stuart Hughes, Mollie Jane Atkinson, Steven Williams
Drama/Horror – 135 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 6 Sep 2017
Among the distracting, long list of Stephen King film adaptations, there are a few iconic images which stand out above the rest. A prom queen covered in pig’s blood. Four pre-teens walking along a railroad track. Jack Nicholson poking his head through a door after chopping it open with an axe. However, I believe the most recognizable symbols may be a young boy in a yellow rain slicker and a solo red balloon. The 1990 TV miniseries of It never throttled theaters the way Misery or Pet Sematary made audiences cower in their seats; it assaulted horror seekers on their couches with its maniac gutter clown. Now, one of the more popular novels in the King canon will thrill its acolytes with a screen story mostly faithful to its origin, an enjoyable ensemble of kids to sell it, and a killer clown who will make fans of the original TV program say, “Tim Curry who?”
There is a certain pop culture mythology attached to the 1990 version. Legions of fans continue to emphasize how much Curry’s Pennywise scared them as children – and this was the family friendly basic cable version. Now that those kids have kids of their own, I can only imagine the nightmares Bill Skarsgård’s (Atomic Blonde) Pennywise will inspire. Stamped with a well-deserved R-rating, director Andy Muschietti’s It does not play the things that go bump in the night game. He does not hint and he does not allude. When it comes time for violence and gore, there are overt dismemberments and literal baths of blood. The teenagers who sneak into the theater will cackle, but if you’re the parent of a kindergartner, prepare for the extra shudder when the little yellow rain slicker meets his howling and brutal end.
There is a certain pop culture mythology attached to the 1990 version. Legions of fans continue to emphasize how much Curry’s Pennywise scared them as children – and this was the family friendly basic cable version. Now that those kids have kids of their own, I can only imagine the nightmares Bill Skarsgård’s (Atomic Blonde) Pennywise will inspire. Stamped with a well-deserved R-rating, director Andy Muschietti’s It does not play the things that go bump in the night game. He does not hint and he does not allude. When it comes time for violence and gore, there are overt dismemberments and literal baths of blood. The teenagers who sneak into the theater will cackle, but if you’re the parent of a kindergartner, prepare for the extra shudder when the little yellow rain slicker meets his howling and brutal end.
To align more with its intended audience, the story advances a few decades in the future and is set in the late ‘80s rather than the late ‘50s. The comic relief earns far more laughs and relief chuckles with the New Kids on the Block jokes, fanny pack references, and the catchy New Wave ‘80s alt rock soundtrack. And what car do bullies from the ‘80s drive? A Pontiac Trans Am of course – the muscle car of choice for psychopathic teenagers to chase and scare their young, weaker, and bicycle-borne victims. The bicycles belonging to ‘The Loser’s Club’ seem a bit too obsolete for the kids of Derry, Maine (where is the BMX?), but the script is smart enough to realize the value of a well-timed ‘your mama’ joke. To this day, I recognize almost all of the best insult comebacks have to do with whatever I did to ‘yo mama’ last night, and the kids of It seem to agree with me. The special care attached to the production design and atmosphere combine to convey a recognizable and somewhat comforting time and place for the viewers. Yes, kids are getting maimed and murdered, but don’t you remember how awesome 1989 was?
Not only separating themselves from their 1990 cable counterparts, but also from the kids from King’s beloved Stand By Me and even The Goonies, the kids in It are foul-mouthed. It’s true, 11 and 12 year-olds fling around the “F” word in real life, but very rarely on screen. The group’s court jester, Richie (Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things), is particularly adept at the word. I love that Muschietti chose to go all in with the R-rating. There is already a serial-killing, child-murdering devil/circus clown on the loose; why not add realistic dialogue to the mix? Furthering the realism is how the pack of pubescent boys view the girl in their group. Beverly (Sophia Lillis) is just as mysterious and exotic as the thing roaming the sewers ripping kids in half and at times the boys tiptoe on egg shells around her the same way they tread lightly in the old abandoned house hoping the clown doesn’t pop out from the corner.
But where are the adults in all of this? They must know something is up because there are 'Missing' posters plastered all over town and a 7:00pm curfew. Yet, like most King stories with child protagonists and even Charlie Brown’s world, there are barely any adults. When something important happens, like one of the kids gets carved up by a bully or they find a shoe from one of the missing girls, none of them tells the nearest adult, not even the cops. It’s unspoken; the kids know to keep it to themselves. The hand full of adults who do pop up all qualify for ‘World’s worst parent’ as they include the borderline molester father and the Munchhausen Syndrome Mom. The kid who belongs to the disappointed rabbi is by far the lucky one. No wonder adults are off limits; they would only make things worse.
Besides, adults cannot see Pennywise or his effects. Beverly shivers on her bathroom floor soaked in blood from head to toe and her father sees nothing out of place. Perhaps out of reach of younger viewers is the idea of the psychotic murdering clown as a malevolent personification. He is a childish clown to some kids and to others a distorted woman from a painting or even a beloved sibling. He’s in your mind and perhaps what makes the enterprise so terrifying is that something pulling from your innermost fears can come out and carve you up.
It’s not only the fears from the darkest part of your soul dimming the light, but the camera work is deliberately over dark. Even during high noon outside, everything is washed out and pallid. Most of the time, in the cellar, the sewer, or a dark garage, Chung-hoon Chung’s cinematography is deliberately eye-straining. It is daylight when young Georgie in his yellow slicker first meets Pennywise. It is raining so hard though it seems like it could be close to sunset. The film's first scene and the first encounter between innocence and evil may become of the most memorable shots of this year or any year. I can’t shake it. Even Stephen King went on record to say how much he enjoyed this take on his material; this from a man who notoriously hated Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining – accusing Kubrick of butchering his story. It is so effective perhaps because there is nothing like it out there today. The contemporary horror genre is stuffed full of haunted houses, ghost hunters, and spooky noises caught on found footage. Evil clown in the gutter? Now that I gotta see.
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