If there’s anyone that comes close to be considered our
modern day Edgar Allen Poe, it would be Stephen King. While throughout his time
he’s done dramatic novellas and others, most people know Stephen King for his
horror novels, some of which are not only some of the best horror stories ever
written, but some of the most influential works of literature known to man.
Last Halloween, I talked about my favorite of his books, “Carrie,” as well as
both adaptations that I love equally, but have expressed that the remake was
actually a lot better, despite what others tell me. And now that we’ve arrived
to this special occasion, it’s time for us to discuss one of the more infamous
of King’s work, “IT.”
For those who don’t know, the original 1986 novel, “IT,” told
the story of the Losers Club, who back during childhood, fought against a
creature that comes about every 27 to 30 years, to eat the children of Derry,
Maine. When IT appears once again when they’re adults, they must do what they
can to make sure IT stays dead.
Now
while it does have the book to adapt its story from, just about everybody who
has heard of “IT,” is mostly through the ABC 1990 miniseries. I took the time
to revisit this, since it was released last year on blu ray, and…well, it has
its charm to it, but I would never call it a good movie. For one, the parts
where they focus on the Losers Club as adults is very melodramatic and slow,
the pacing is unfocused and all over the place, and the whole second part of
the mini-series is very uninteresting. That being said, I will admit the parts
that focus on the Losers Club as kids is fairly charming, especially
considering the kids themselves are pretty good actors. Although, it should be
expected, considering they have Seth Green and the tragically late Jonathan
Brandis part of them. Of course, the one thing that keeps just about everyone
coming back to the mini-series with good memories, is Tim Curry as Pennywise
the Dancing Clown, one of IT’s forms. I know he’s intended to be scary, but
Curry’s performance is just so delightfully entertaining, that even in moments
where he tries to be scary, it just comes off as funny to me. I mean, watch the
library scene from part 2 of the miniseries, and try not to laugh at it. So
yeah, while the mini-series isn’t the best, I do have some sort of fun
revisiting it for at least the kids and Curry.
Around
2009, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema had acquired the rights to the book, and
had announced that a feature film re-imagining would be in development soon. Originally,
David Kajganich had submitted a script to Warner Bros, but he was sadly turned
down, and the script would be tasked to Chase Palmer and Cary Fukunaga, the
latter of which was also attached to direct. Around that time, there was word
of mouth on who New Line was considering to play Pennywise; names like Mark
Rylance, Hugo Weaving, Ben Mendelsohn, and even Tilda Swinton were among the
choosing. Instead, Fukunaga had casted Will Poulter, fresh off of the first
“Maze Runner,” to play Pennywise. However, in 2015, both Fukunaga and Poulter
had to drop out of the film, but they had different reasons for doing so.
Fukunaga left the project, but only as director, because he and the studio were
clashing about what would be adapted from his script, as well as budget
concerns, so things got pretty messy. Poulter, however, dropped out because of
scheduling conflicts, as he was working on other films like “The Revenant” and
“The Maze Runner 3.” Could he have made a good Pennywise, had he stayed?
Personally, I would say definitely. Even if he didn’t have much to show at the
time, Poulter has proven later on that he is a damn good actor. Hell, he gave
one of the best performances in 2017, with his role as a racist hostile
cop in the Kathryn Bigalow movie, “Detroit.” He captures both a sinister and
mischievous tone in such an excellent manner, and I’m probably expecting him to
get an Oscar nod for it.
So
you would think the remake of “IT” would be dead from there, right? Wrong. That
same year, Andy Muschietti, the man who gave us “Mama” in 2013, was tasked with
helming the project, with his sister, Barbara, attached as a producer. From
there on, the rest is history, with the cast being assembled, Fukunaga and
Palmer’s script being re-written by Gary Dauberman, and the film being filmed
over the summer of 2016, with a release in 2017 set in stone. When the teaser
trailer was first released, it didn’t seem like much. Hell, every time I watch
the part where Georgie runs into a blockade post, I always end up laughing my
ass off, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. However, by the time the
official trailer was released, something about it had me captured in such a
familiar and hypnotizing spell, that I couldn’t keep myself from looking at
whatever promotional material they had to offer. I even watched the trailer
first hand online, which is something I almost NEVER do anymore, unless I’ve
already seen it or I’m not interested. But this was different. I kept coming
back over and over again, and by the time “Annabelle: Creation” came out, I
purely saw it, just so I could see the exclusive scene that they were promoting
“IT” in front of. Somehow, this ended up becoming my most anticipated film of
2017, and I was really excited to see it.
Now,
it’s been about a month; the film has garnered much acclaim from
critics, and it’s broken box office records beyond expectations. Example? Well,
as I’m typing this, “IT” has not only become the highest grossing Stephen King
adaptation, it has become the highest grossing R rated horror film of all time,
beating out “The Exorcist.” I’ve seen the movie twice now, and does it deserve
it? Well, let’s take a look at it.
While
the timeline from the book has shifted, going from 1989 to 2016 as opposed to
1959 to 1986, the story is still the same. A group of kids: Billy, Ben,
Beverly, Richie, Eddie, Stan, and Mike. They’re part of a gang called the
Losers Club, living in the town of Derry, Maine. However, during the summer,
they encounter a supernatural entity that every 27 years, comes back and eats
the Children of Derry. They address the being as IT, that mostly appears in the
form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and now it’s up to them to defeat IT so no
other child will have to live in fear of the terrifying foe.
Not
only is Andy Muschietti’s “IT” a damn good horror film, as well as a true and
faithful adaptation of the book, I would go as far as to say that I would put it side by side with John Carpenter’s “The Thing” and
Fede Alvarez’s “Evil Dead.” Yeah, this film impressed me, even after having
such high expectations. First off, they changed the book’s format to be more
linear, so the entire film focuses on the kids during their summer. This was an
excellent decision, as it puts all of its efforts on adapting that first half
of the book, something that would have been hard to do back then, since studios
didn’t exactly have the kind of confidence to give the go-ahead on a sequel
that quickly. But now that we’re at that point, it makes it easier to follow, watching
a film about kids in the summer fighting a monster. It works as a callback to
both the Spielberg films of the 1980’s about kids and adventures and another
one of King’s stories, “Stand By Me,” mostly because of the friendship that
these kids share with each other.
And
for those of you who want to know, the opening scene alone illustrates that
this film is embracing its R rating, and that this was only a taste of what it
could bring. It is violent, it’s unsettling, it’s got cursing up the ass, and
every scary scene that they hinted at in the trailers still gets to me, no
matter how many times I prepare myself for it. While I do prefer horror that’s
more subjective than visual, this film manages to have a perfect balance of
both. I think the scenes that are more subjective, such as Beverly and her
father, and Patrick Hockstetter’s death scene, might have been from Fukunaga’s
original script, after Muschietti toned it back enough to stomach. So with this
being an R rated movie, how does it handle some of the book’s more
controversial scenes? Well, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, read the
book. Second, they don’t particularly adapt it, and for the record, I think
that’s a good thing. While I do enjoy the book, there were times that felt like
it was going WAY too far, so for them to work around it was probably for the
best.
Of
course, we can’t forget our cast, which I was really impressed with. Most of
the cast consists of young child actors, and much to my delight, they’re all
fantastic. The Losers Club actors are all fantastic, because much like “Stand
By Me,” they all act like kids. They curse, they joke about their moms, they
ride their bikes, they go on adventures, play video games, build stuff. While
most of them are newcomers or recent up comers, they really sell it as if
they’ve been acting for five or ten films. Jaeden Lieberher, who you may
remember as the kid from “St. Vincent” and “The Book of Henry,” plays Bill, and
he really manages to carry this film strongly. He not only gives the stutter
that Bill struggles with throughout the story, but he also has the determination to
lead his friends into stopping this chaos. If Jonathan Brandis were alive
today, I’m sure he would have been proud of Lieberher’s performance. Jeremy Ray
Taylor and Sophia Lillis as Ben and Beverly are also fantastic, and Finn
Wolfhard from “Stranger Things” and Jack Dylan Grazer are hilarious as Richie
and Eddie. The only two who I felt like didn’t get much to do were Stan and
Mike, played by Wyatt Oleff and Chosen Jacobs. The two weren’t bad, but I just
felt they didn’t get as much interesting things to do as some of the others.
The
kids playing Henry Bowers and his gang are an especially big improvement from the
mini-series. Instead of just being a raging psychopath, they actually take the
time to establish Henry having a bad relationship with his dad, who’s a cop,
and that he takes his anger out on the Losers club to get away from that. It’s
still a little overboard, but they do establish a motive behind it, as well as
having Pennywise influence him later on in the film.
Speaking
of which, let’s talk about the main attraction of this thrill ride, and that is
Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Prior to the release of this film, I had only seen
Bill Skarsgard in two movies (“The Divergent Series: Allegiant” and “Atomic
Blonde”), so I didn’t know much of his range as an actor. Much to my delight,
he managed to succeed. The design of Pennywise has a more timeless feel to it,
as opposed to the loud colors that Curry’s clown had, signifying that this
creature has been around for a long time. And Skarsgard manages to be both
funny and frightening all at once. That scene when Georgie meets the clown, it
is unsettling, but it does make me laugh at Skarsgard’s silly Scooby-Doo voice,
only to let my guard down as he moves in for the kill. And that’s the most
important thing that I loved about this movie, is that Pennywise is really
scary. You can tell that Heath Ledger’s Joker had an influence on
him, as he does have that sort of approach, but not to where it feels like he’s
copying him…unlike OTHER actors playing clowns. I also loved how they managed
to use CGI very sparingly and in a convincing manner. The basement scene and
the projector scene, the parts that were advertised the most, are easily the
scariest parts of the movie, especially with how different they turned out in
the film AND with how well the film builds the tension. Skarsgard is a
fantastic Pennywise, and even both Stephen King and Tim Curry give their
approval.
Andy
Muschietti also makes the film look really nice looking. While the film takes
place in Derry, Maine, it actually filmed in Riverdale, and I just love how it
looks. “IT” really manages to capture the feeling of small town kids on a big
adventure, like a mix between “The Goonies” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street,”
the latter of which, you can tell had a really big influence on this movie in a
few places. That, and the cinematography by Chung-hoon Chung is really
stunning. Not a bad shot from what I saw.
Overall,
“IT” is easily my favorite horror film of the year, as well as among my Top 5
Stephen King movies. Now with the kind of rapid success that this film has,
there is of course going to be a sequel coming out in September of 2019, and
Muschietti wants to get pre-production going as soon as January. He says that
he wants to do flashback scenes with the kids while they’re still young, and
that he was going to have the sequel focus on the origins of Pennywise. The
real question remains, who will play the kids as adults? Well, while we’re
talking about this, I’ll give my little fan casting for you:
For Bill: Tobey Maguire
For Richie: Bill Hader
For Eddie: Jake Gyllenhaal
For Stan: Simon Heldberg
For Ben: Chris Pratt
For Mike: Chiwitel Ejiofor
For Beverly: Amy Adams
Rating: 10/10
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