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I saw a random meme the other day of a head growing legs, much like The Thing but more CG’ed. I found out it was from It and I had no recollection of that scene. I thought it was time a revisit to Pennywise and put Chapter 1.
I’m such an idiot as I thought this had Jessica Chastain in it. It was about an hour and a half through it and I remembered it was Chapter 2.
It: Chapter 1
The first of the remakes stars Jaeden Martell, Finn Woflhard, Sophia Lillis, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer and Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise the loveable dancing clown.
Andy Muschiette is the director and does a great job. The writers are Chase Palmer, Cary Joji Fukunaga and Gary Daunberman. The story is based on the Stephen King novel of the same time.
The story for Chapter 1 is:
In the summer of 1989, a group of bullied kids band together to destroy a shape-shifting monster, which disguises itself as a clown and preys on the children of Derry, their small Maine town.
Come on, you know the story. I love the opening with little Georgie taking out his boat to play in the rain. The paper boat ends up going down a storm drain and he meets Pennywise.
The cheeky clown rips little Georgie’s arm off, very graphically, and drags him down to the sewer. From this opening, you know this isn’t for kids, the arm rips and Georgie trying to crawl away with a bloody stump, is a gritty opening.
The rest of the story is about how Pennywise terrorises a group of kids. Each of the kids have their own growing pains to go through, and then an evil clown turns up and starts to make things worse.
The kids battle Pennywise and figure out that, as a group, they can beat him. They do and make a pact to come back together if Pennywise ever shows up again.
It: Chapter 2
In this sequel, the kids are grown up and played by James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean and Skarsgard is back as Pennywise.
Wouldn’t you know it, but Pennywise shows up again. It’s now 27 years later and all of the kids have left town, and all grown up. Apart from Mike, who’s stayed back in Derry to keep an eye on things.
When a red balloon shows up, Mike knows that Pennywise is back and calls everyone up. Everyone is older, made good careers for themselves, but the call from Mike suddenly scars the crap out of them.
They have to go back to Derry and battle Pennywise, this time, once and for all.
Horror done well
It: Chapter 1 and 2 are very well directed movies. Muschietti is a very good horror director. His other good horror is Mama, starring Chastain again, but is a decent horror movie.
What I like about him is that he doesn’t patronise the audience. Watching It this time around, the scars are very subtle. There are odd moments of Pennywise hiding around a corner, standing in the distance or just an out-of-focus character in the middle of nowhere.
Most directors haven’t spell out the scares because they seem to think their audience is stupid. I mean, most American audiences are stupid, we know that, but most viewers are smart.
It’s a pity that Muschietti recently made The Flash. It was a truly terrible movie, but I put that more to studio interference rather than Muschietti.
The Cast
Kids in movies can be a problem. Sometimes you have a great movie, but one kid is a terrible actor, and it ruins it. Jonathan Lipnicki in Jerry Maguire springs to mind, but I might be remembering that badly.
The kids in Chapter 1 are all excellent. Each one of them pulls their weight and plays each character very well. Yes, Finn Wolfhard is in it, but he does swear his head off in it. It was nice to see him going from goodie to shoes to f*ing at everything in this.
Sophia Lillis really stands out. Her character seems to have it worse out of everyone. Her mother is dead, dad blames her and abuses her for it. It’s subtly done, but still very creepy. She plays it very well though.
That’s not taking anything away anything from the others. All the characters have issues they have to deal with bullying, overprotective mothers, faith and all that going on with hormones raging.
Curry vs Skarsgard
This is going to be a tough one. On the one hand, Tim Curry is a legend. His Pennywise from the original TV series is terrifying. I still have nightmares about him. He had a great look, where he was a cute, cuddly clown at one point, then the teeth would change and so would my underwear.
Skarsgard on the other hand is just creepy all the time. There is no point in Chapter 1 or 2, that his Pennywise is cute. Forget that he is in the sewer, if I saw him at any point, I would have run away quicker than a Hollywood producer from a good idea.
The other issue with Skarsgard is the eyes. I read that they wanted to have one of Pennywise’s eyes looking at the character on the screen, and the other, at the camera. Watching this again, it just didn’t work. It was more confusing than scary.
The thing that Skarsgard did do though was dribble. I don’t know why, but it creeped me out. He constantly had a dribble coming out of his mouth and it just made me uncomfortable.
For me, Curry takes the win. His nice side is more warming, which lulls you into a false sense of security.
Overall
Watching It: Chapter 1 and 2 again was a bit of a treat. They are very well-made movies, they are very well told and the characters are engaging. I will say that Chapter 2 is far too long, it’s nearly 3 hours on its own. There’s a good hour you could cut out and still have a good movie.
Also, the ending isn’t the best. As we know, Stephen King sometimes misses endings like I miss the toilet when I pee in the night. The ending of this is just weird; the clown is an entity from outer space that could be trapped in a leather vase. There is a running joke about in Chapter 2, where Bill has grown up and become an author. Everyone mentions his endings aren’t that good. Even a shop owner, played by Stephen King himself.
I think the ending in this is better than the original. I remember the original ending as some giant spider that explodes. Here it is handled a little better.
Overall, I give It: Chapters 1 & 2 a solid 3.5 out of 5. It’s far from perfect, it’s too long, but it’s a decent story and well directed.
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