Horror movies aren’t normally my “thing”. The ones I do watch, which are few and far between, tend to be on Netflix when they pique my interest. It’s very rare that I’ll spend out money on one, even if it’s a sequel to something I’ve seen already. That said, from the moment that I saw “It” advertised I’ve known I was going to be seeing it. One way or another, I knew I’d have no problem paying out money to see it in the cinema. That’s not because I’ve read the book. I own the book, but I’ve yet to get around to reading it. I do remember watching the 1990 mini-series when I was much younger, but I barely remember it well enough to actually make too many references between it and the movie now. But last night, with a spring in my step, I took my seat in the cinema to enjoy this and… well, this is my Verdict.
The Setup
Do I need to go over the plot of It? It’s Stephen King, it features that iconic clown that gave so many people my age nightmares when we were younger. While I may not have read the book I’m loosely aware of the plot, and I can tell you that the movie only covers half of the story from the book. The story it tells is the story of the children’s first encounter with “It”, setting the stage for the creature’s presumptive return in the sequel. Unlike the book, which began in the 50s, the story begins in late 1988, when Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher) and his younger brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) are making a paper boat. Bill is sick, so he can’t go outside, but Georgie can, and he takes the paper boat and floats it down the part-flooded street where it speeds down with the water and slips into a drain. Georgie, devastated he’s just lost the boat that his brother and he just made and afraid he’s going to get in trouble, looks into the sewer where he encounters a clown (Bill Skarsgård) hiding down there. The clown offers him the boat back, introducing himself as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, before ripping his arm off and then dragging him down into the sewer, never to be seen again…
From that introduction we cut to summer 1989, and are introduced to the main cast one by one, from our reintroduction to Bill to his friends Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard), Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer), and Stanley Uris (Wyatt Oleff). At the same time we’re also introduced to Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis), a girl who’s abused by her father and labelled as a ‘slut’ by the other kids at school, and Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor), a newly arrived student who’s picked on for being overweight. Not long after the group all become friends and jokingly refer to themselves as “The Loser’s Club”, due to the fact that they’re all bullied for different reasons by the same group of bullies. It’s summer vacation now however and while they all agree they should be out having fun instead Bill convinces all of them to help him follow up on his theories for what happened to his little brother, since all of the adults seem to have given up looking despite the fact that Georgie’s body was never recovered. One by one they then encounter “It”, often in the guise of Pennywise but occasionally in other forms, a monster that seems to pray on its victim’s worst fears to terrify and ultimately kill them.
The Delivery
While the plot of the movie probably won’t come as a shock to anyone (especially those, like me, with the vaguest recollection of the 1990 mini-series) it’s more than solid enough to hold your attention for the 135-minute runtime. What’s more the introduction to the characters, and the unique aspects each of them are given to make them all stand out as individuals rather than just be lumped together as a main character and a group of cliché friends, all come across and during the early part of the film you’re made to care about each of them. That wouldn’t be possible without decent performances from the whole cast, with the best performances coming from the main two actors, Jaeden Lieberher as the main character Bill Denbrough and, of course, Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Jaeden Lieberher’s performance as an anxious teenager is highly relatable to anyone who remembers being an anxious teenager, while Bill Skarsgård is both captivating and terrifying as Pennywise. Whenever the character is on screen it’s impossible to do anything but watch.
As I said, the plot likely won’t come across as a deep shock to anyone. We’ve all seen horror movies before, haven’t we? And given that the book “It” likely helped INSPIRE some of those horror movies, the plot is pretty standard for a film of this type. That said, it stays a nice distance from being “cliché”, and the strength of the characters carries you through the story more than happily. The strength of the villain, however, is what takes the film from good to great. The way that we’re shown “It” throughout the film, from a scene where it brings a rather creepy looking painting to life to go after one of the kids, to a scene where it goes after one of them as an almost zombified leper, to every appearance of Pennywise – whether he’s being “playful” or just downright terrifying – makes the creature such a fantastic villain that you want to see beaten by the end of the film. Another benefit the plot has is not throwing in our face the various bits of backstory we’re given. There isn’t a random exposition dump at any point in the film, as you often see in films of this type where someone “finds the information” in an old book or online and then just dumps it all on you, and they don’t even TRY to explain what the creature is, which makes the creature even more satisfying as a villain.
My favourite thing about this film, by far, is that this is the furthest thing from what I’d call a “modern horror film” that you can get. So many horror films focus on the blood, the gore and the carnage. They give us disposable characters that you’re just counting down the minutes after their introduction until they’re slaughtered, and waiting to see which the bloodiest, goriest, nastiest death scene will be. There’s none of that here. Yes, there’s blood, but there’s an appropriate amount of blood, and it’s what the movie DOESN’T show you that might be its strongest point. In the beginning, with poor Georgie and our introduction to Pennywise, we don’t need to see how gory and brutal Georgie’s death scene is, instead we see him fall to the ground after the creature bites his arm, and then we just see him dragged into the sewer. Your imagination creates a far more terrifying picture of what happened to him after that that any overblown death scene could ever provide, especially since we see just enough of Pennywise/the creature to leave you imagining what happened to the poor kid.
The film honestly feels like a throwback to the “good old days” of horror films, and while I said the plot isn’t exactly revolutionary, neither is it paint by numbers. Another thing I like about this film is that we don’t see death after death after death. We don’t focus on all the people that “It” kills or drags away. We don’t get introduced to dozens of characters only to see them slaughtered at the creature’s hands. Yes, we’re aware that it’s happening, but the fact is the film doesn’t need to show it to us. It sets the mood by not showing us, by leaving so much of it to our imaginations, and by focusing on the main set of characters instead. And, slight spoiler alert, they don’t all die in the end leaving one kid as the lone survivor who miraculously found a way to beat the creature, only for it to reveal it’s not actually dead. Nope, like I said, this isn’t a cliché horror film. The strength of the film – and I’d imagine Stephen King’s book – is that it steers well away from all of that, and instead focuses on delivering a satisfying story with, as already mentioned, a cast of characters with whom you can genuinely connect and you want to see succeed in their own, unique ways.
Then there’s another element that I honestly didn’t think we’d get from a movie like this, and that’s the “moral” of the movie. Once again this isn’t your cliché horror film. Previous horror films have tried to teach us that humanity is just damn evil, or that monsters are unstoppable killing machines, or that a person can be just pure evil, and apparently also unkillable. This movie, instead, teaches us different things. It may teach us that monsters are real and most people are willing to just completely ignore that as long as it doesn’t affect them, but it also teaches us about the power of friendship, about loyalty to your friends, and about accepting people. The “Loser’s Club” personifies that very idea. The group is made up of “losers” from almost every walk of life, without a real cliché character amongst them, and I honestly love that about the film. The smart kid isn’t a token geek. The overweight kid isn’t constantly getting winded and unable to do anything. The black kid isn’t spouting token lines (and doesn’t die at all, let alone first). And the girl isn’t making out with half the boys and only concerned about her love life. There are actually two “romantic” subplots but they remain subplots throughout, never becoming the overblown focus of the story even at the end… which is where the movie, perhaps, is at its weakest.
It’s not a bad ending by any stretch of the imagination. The final battle with the creature is very satisfying (as, actually, is the earlier “end of act two” battle with “It” as well), and the character arc of Bill is wrapped up quite nicely with his search for his brother, but yet there’s definitely a feeling that the end of the movie is far from the end of the story. If this is done on purpose – which it most likely is, due to the fact that the movie ends on a title board announcing the film as “It: Chapter One”, and more than implying there’s a “Chapter Two” to come at some stage – then I feel like it could have done just a little more to close up this “half” of the story. Perhaps this was too true to the source material in the sense that the source material then went straight into the next part, and it feels almost like this movie needs that. It’s got a little bit of the “Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring” feeling about the ending. Yes, it’s a good ending, but… it feels very much like there’s more to come and less like anything is really concluded, which is a pity as I’m a big believer that every movie should give you a satisfying ending, even if it is only one part of a larger story.
The other disappointment, quite honestly, is the age of the actors. Unless they’re planning to wait a LONG TIME before making “Chapter Two” then I’m going to assume they’re going to completely recast for the sequel, as they’re going to have to age the characters up by about 25 years between the events of the movie and the events of the sequel, and honestly… that just sucks. I like these characters, I like these actors, and seeing completely different people playing them in the sequel is going to make the movie feel really weird if you watch it back to back, which again only makes the ending of “Chapter One” less satisfying. I’m never going to be able to watch THESE people continue the story. I don’t know if it’s possible to wait 10 years and then make a sequel. I have no clue when the sequel is planned for. But I get the feeling it will have a whole new cast… but at least it’ll likely have Bill Skarsgård return as Pennywise again, which is more than reason enough to watch the sequel when it comes out (or the prequel I’ve been told there’s a rumour of, because honestly I’d watch that too if it’s happening. I’d love to see more of how Pennywise came about).
The Verdict
As always, a quick explanation. I’m not a big believer in giving films “ratings”. I can count on one hand the films I’d tell you absolutely NEVER to bother seeing because they’re THAT terrible. Instead, I choose to tell you whether or not a movie is worth your money to watch it, or if it’s more likely to be something you should check out on Netflix when it’s available because, well, you’re already paying for that service so it’s not actually costing you anything more to watch, is it? So, on that note I have some good news and some bad news, and the bad news is seeing this is going to cost you more than your Netflix subscription…
Go See It In the Cinema
I would highly, highly recommend this in the cinema. The “jump-scare” moments (thankfully few of them) will be far more satisfying when you jump alongside a whole bunch of other people doing the same thing. The atmosphere of watching the film in the dark with the cinema sound will definitely pay off here because you want this experience to be as immersive as possible. And believe me, it’s definitely worth the money. It’s so worth seeing, in fact, that I happily paid to take my friend along (although he did buy me a drink and dinner after, so I think I actually paid out less than he did) and I’m already planning to go back in for a second screening next weekend with a different friend, because I’ll more than happily watch this a second time. If you like good movies, and you want something far more than the “slasher flick”/gorefest that most modern day “horror” is, then you will NOT be disappointed by “It”, I can promise you that.