It (2017) - Movie Review

As we continue our look into the Stephen King adaptations for the year, we’ve come to a certain story that holds a very special place in my heart for a number of reasons. Growing up with a rather morbid and horror-loving mother, I had a lot of exposure to King’s work growing up. One such examples was the 1990 miniseries based on King’s novel It. Despite its rather glaring issues, much like most other Stephen King-based miniseries, it has a very secure place in my personal nostalgia. That connection would eventually lead to the Nostalgia Critic incident, which I have discussed on here before, where my love for the miniseries lead me to my first-ever instance of fanboy rage. I’ve had many more cases of that since then, but that was what first lit fire under me to rage out about what someone else dares to think about something I love; you’ll notice that I don’t tend to do this that much anymore.

 

And now, after a fair amount of time in production limbo, we have the first of two theatrical films based on that same story. Knowing my own love for Tim Curry’s homicidal kookiness as Pennywise, I was definitely sceptical about how it would measure up. What I was in no way prepared for was just how good this would turn out.

The plot: In the small town of Derry, Maine, a large number of children have gone missing, some turning up dead. Local recluse Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) and his friends Stan (Wyatt Oleff), Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), Bev (Sophia Lillis), Richie (Finn Wolfhard), Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Mike (Chosen Jacobs) soon find themselves targeted by an evil clown calling itself Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård), who appears to be behind the string of disappearances. With none of the adults being able to see Pennywise, and none of the other kids wanting to get involved, it’s up to Bill and his Loser’s Club to stop this reign of terror before it claims another victim.

Not every child actor here has prior acting credits. If I had my way, I would ensure that they all get future acting credits because these actors are absolutely amazing. Lieberher as the de facto leader shoulders a lot of grief for most of the film and does so almost-disturbingly well, along with absolutely nailing the bigger monologues he’s given. Lillis works a nice balance concerning “tomboy” female characters, getting across the core femininity that plays into a lot of her subplot but also a connection with the others that makes her stand out as more than just “the token girl”. Wolfhard is perfect as Richie, somehow managing to outdo Seth Green in the 1990 miniseries in how he wields his character’s sense of humour not as simple jokes but as the way he copes with his surroundings. That, and his delivery for his lines is always on point, whether the jokes are meant to be funny or not.

 

Grazer works very well with his very hypochondriac character without coming across as a one-note punchline, Oleff does much the same as the wimp of the group, Taylor is incredibly endearing as the lonely romantic, and even though Jacobs doesn’t get as much screen time as I would have liked, he does very well as a look into how fear by way of prejudice plays into the story. As for our antagonists, they certainly deliver as vile human beings, from Nicholas Hamilton’s unnervingly grounded bully to Stephen Bogaert’s chilling turn as Bev’s abusive father to Mollie Jane Atkinson basically showing how Everything, Everything should have gone down as Eddie’s gaslighting mother.

And then there’s the titular It, and you know it’s going to be good when he gets his own special mention. To properly explain why Bill Skarsgård is so damn effective in this movie, I am going to make what I hope will be my last comparison to the 1990 series and compare him to the big guy Tim Curry. Curry’s performance as Pennywise is widely remembered with good reason, as his knack for larger-than-life characters definitely aided him in portraying this demonic, child-murdering clown. However, that is a very specific depiction of It as a character; as good as it was, Curry seemed to have taken the fact that he was playing an evil clown and ran with it, resulting in a role that is definitely creepy but you can tell the guy is having a little too much fun on set.

 

Skarsgård is a completely different story. More so than being a creepy clown, It is meant to represent fear incarnate; if anything in the world scares you, It will show it to you so it can feed off of your despair. Skarsgård’s It is a far more primal creature than Curry’s, one that uses the visage of Pennywise as a mask for the true horror lying within. Because of how Skarsgård seems to embody far more aspects of the character, from the connection with children to It’s need for fear, I honestly like him more. Partly for the performance, and partly because his presence in the story sets up the film’s entire approach to scares.

 

It’s Halloween horror most assuredly, similar to that of Ouija: Origin Of Evil, but this is damn good Halloween horror. Between the impeccably established atmosphere, the learned use of jump scares (enough to make the point but not too many as to dilute the rest of the production) and the insanely creepy soundtrack courtesy of Benjamin Wallfisch who takes It’s penchant for bending reality and applying it to circus music to create skin-crawling sounds, this is the kind of horror film that pretty much does everything right in terms of scaring the audience.

Not that this film is all about the scares, though. More so than horror, this story operates as a coming-of-age tale for our leads. That’s not too worthy of note on its own, but consider what “coming-of-age” has come to mean in cinema recently: Teenagers becoming adults, adults becoming actual adults, but rarely do we get the puberty side of growing up nowadays. Well, much like the acting as a whole, I can only hope that this is a sign of good things to come, as this does extremely well at that too. Between our leads, there’s a general air of comedy to a lot of their dialogue, with Ritchie leading the charge on the joke front while everyone else shows that they can give as well as they take in playful insults. Even in the more tense moments, that need to crack jokes never seems to leave our heroes, almost as if they need levity to cope with the nightmarish events that occur around them; you have no idea how much I can sympathise with this.

 

As for the themes of growing up, we get the usual “the kids are always the smartest” stylings one would expect from a Stephen King story, using familial tensions and youthful strength to show how important the Losers’ Club’s mission truly is. That feeling of being thrown into a far darker world than what one is used to from growing up is very tangible here, even considering the varyingly tragic home lives of the characters, and as a showing of literal and thematic growth in these children, the film can get a little obvious (i.e. Beverly’s subplot tied into puberty) but it always hits home.

What made Stephen King’s original novel as beloved as it is to this day is likely down to one simple thing: What is fear? Through a far-reaching perspective on what makes people afraid, and what that fear leads them to do in turn, King made a story about just how deep-seated fear is in the human mind. This film, thankfully, follows that same approach. It deals with simple childhood fears like clowns, dark places and lepers, but it also goes into more complex showings of fear like prejudice and desperation. The thing that makes It as scary as It is isn’t just down to Skarsgård; it’s also because of It’s influence on the town of Derry.

 

Throughout the film, there are plenty of little touches that show how much It, fear incarnate, rules over the town and the people who live in it. Listen out whenever a TV is playing in the background and you’ll get a better idea of just how much control It has. But beyond that, the film follows King’s method in not pulling any punches: Hate crimes, sexual abuse, grief, Munchausen by proxy, gory murder; there is no doubt about the evils that lurk in this small town. While deeply in love with the red stuff, the filmmakers know enough about these rather touchy subjects to show enough that we understand what is happening, but not to the point where it gets exploitative.

What makes this hit even harder is how that fear manifests in the town’s inactions as well as their actions; anytime a child cries out for help, they are met with silence from the adults, and that’s the best case scenario. All the deaths, all the disappearances, all the damage that has been caused by It’s cycle of destruction… and no-one wants to get involved. This is where the coming-of-age themes truly take hold, as we see a world where evil exists and the older generation is either too docile or too scared to stop it; the kids, on the other hand (save for those directly influenced by It in turn) know that It must be stopped. They’re scared beyond belief but they can’t bear to let the terror continue, even if they lose their own lives in the process, because they know that they are the only ones who can. The next generation fighting the good fight when those before them wouldn’t or couldn’t; with how fearful the world continues to be, this is another one of those sentiments that needs to be in circulation right now.

All in all, I am genuinely stunned; I loved the 1990 miniseries but, even with only half the story, this smashes it. The acting is phenomenal, the production shows that fun, gripping and clever approach to Halloween horror that I love, the music is downright chilling and the writing manages to juggle so many different moods and themes without losing grip on any of them. It’s scary, it’s funny, it’s heartfelt, it’s inspirational, it’s smart; it is a fantastic movie and I can only hope that the second chapter can match it.