This past weekend the remake to “Stephen King’s It” officially hit theatres to an audience of eager horror fans, myself included. Let me start by saying that at one time I considered myself a true horror aficionado having seen over two hundred horror films by the time I entered high school, the original miniseries “It” being among them. I will admit that I was initially skeptical about a remake of one of the classic horror icons of the 90s, after all the
“Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Friday the 13th” remakes had only succeeded in killing my favorite childhood memories of their characters and now it seemed Hollywood was gunning for old Pennywise. Though upon rewatching the original film in anticipation for its remake I was sad to discover that twenty-seven years was long enough for the great horror figure to lose a great deal of its scare factor, don’t get me wrong the film still holds up in terms of story and character but the limited resources and production value effectively paralyze the film’s suspense for an audience used to cutting edge effects in even the lowest budget horror films of this era. For that reason, I began to believe that maybe a remake wasn’t such a bad idea, especially if it afforded the filmmakers the opportunity to follow a more authentic interpretation of King’s novel. For that reason, I made sure that I was at my local theatre, ticket in hand for the premiere.
Because “It” is a remake and both versions of the films do a decent job at following the source material they each hit a great deal of the same beats throughout, to include that iconic opening scene between Pennywise and Georgie, the losers club rock battle with their bullies, and the climax with the creature itself. “It” also adds its fair share of additional material meant to develop our young heroes and frighten the hell out of the audience with several low stakes high scare moments with it.
WHATS GOOD
Let’s start with the acting, everyone in this film pulled off their roles fabulously. Especially given some of the awkward dialogue they were given. (I’m referring to the frightening amount of dick jokes coming from twelve-year-old). The child stars each demonstrated an ability to carry themselves individually and as a part of an ensemble. The roles they were asked to pull off carried a lot of emotional baggage and variety that you normally don’t expect out of one child actor let alone six of them. Then there is Bill Skarsgard who was tasked with reinventing the role of Pennywise previously played and well established by Tim Curry. One can imagine the pressure this actor felt stepping into Curry’s clown shoes and trying to put his own spin on the character. The last time there was this much pressure around playing a clown was when Heath Ledger took the role of The Joker from Jack Nicholson; I am happy to say that the results here are just as good as they were there. Skarsgard puts his own creepy unsettling take for the clown and delivers him in a way that left me with nightmares days after I saw the film. Again, writing dialogue for an interdimensional monster disguised as a clown is hard, trying to deliver that dialogue without turning into an actual circus clown is even harder. Skarsgard does it well by giving us what I believe is an even more accurate representation of the character. Pennywise isn’t a clown after all he’s a monster from another dimension. Skarsgard plays him as a monster pretending to be a clown in a creepy and awkward way that makes sense for the character. Pennywise giggles and speaks nervously which is unsettling. Even more disturbing is that you can see the hunger in his eyes. It would be like one of us trying to convince a chicken to hop onto our plate after we haven’t eaten for a few days.
One of the other aspects of this film that makes it work is that it’s not a great horror movie, it’s just a great movie in general. If you were to take out the Pennywise and all the supernatural scares then what you are left with is a classic coming of age story about a group of kids each dealing with their own adolescent problems (some of which are more extreme than others) coming together to fend off against the bullies who have tormented them throughout the school year. If that sounds familiar to you, then it should. It’s essentially “Stand by Me” another great film based on a Stephen King story. Add in Pennywise and you have an already great story with the bonus of being extremely scary. The film does an excellent job of blending both of its components and gives us enough comedy breaks to keep the timid viewer engaged long enough to get to the next scare.
WHAT’S BAD
I must admit that I really needed to think about this for a bit. The film is solid and it delivers everywhere it was supposed to. The primary issue that I have with it as a horror movie is that I feel it relied on C.G.I far more than it needed to. Granted, Pennywise is a shape-shifter and because of that, he goes through several uncomfortable transformations in the film that don’t really resonate as scary so much as they are whacky and ridiculous. The climax of the film showcases him rapidly going through several of the forms he utilized in the first and second acts in a bizarre sequence that reminded me of a boggart from “Harry Potter” the argument can be made that at this point in the film the children are no longer afraid of It and the whacky transformations are meant to make the audience feel the same way. For better or worse it works, by the third act we have had so much exposure to the character, not to mention a premature climax. Pennywise’s scariness peaks during the loser clubs first real encounter with him and from there we only get brief moments of fear which as I stated earlier, are weighed down by the goofiness of the C.G.I.
Another thing hampering this film is that it gives itself over too easily to the cliché horror movie tropes like jump scares which the film really doesn’t need them to be scary at all…the situation is frightening enough without.
Overall, I think that “It” is not only a great addition to the horror genre but a proper demonstration on how filmmakers should approach horror and remakes alike. I give “It” an 8/10.
