Fed up clowning around
Everyone is supposed to be scared of clowns, right? Well, not me, not at least after sitting through more than two hours of It (16) HH, an adaptation of Stephen King’s 1986 novel. I was more bored and fed up than frightened – bored because it goes on so long, despite covering only half of King’s story, and fed up with a level of nastiness that has resulted in a film about a group of bullied 13-year-olds being given a certificate that rightly requires its audience to be at least three years older.
King’s novel was adapted for television in 1990, which I have to confess I’ve never seen. But I can only assume Tim Curry’s performance as the old clown-faced demon, Pennywise, was a lot scaring ier than the one rendered here by Bill Skarsgard. If he wasn’t prone to suddenly biting off sweet little boys’ arms, this Pennywise really wouldn’t be frighten- at all. Maybe that’s why director Andy Muschietti feels the need to ratchet up the nastiness. Obese mothers, sexually abusive fathers, bullies who like to carve their names in fat boys’ stomachs…
But you can’t help but feel that the time for scary clowns has been and gone.
‘But for biting off boys’ arms, he wouldn’t be scary at all’