SEND IN THE CLOWN
Stephen King’s Pennywise is back to terrify us all over again in this even scarier and funnier sequel
PENNYWISE – the demon killer clown – returns to scare you out of your cinema seat with this shockingly great supernatural sequel which improves on the half-a-billion pound box office monster that delivered the first chapter two years ago.
Director Andy Muschietti and writer Gary Dauberman are back with an abundance of confidence to bring the second part of Stephen King’s 1986 novel to terrifying life, with even stronger character work, greater grisly and gory thrills and a surprising amount of humour.
It’s set in 2016, 27 years after the events of Chapter 1, and the child heroes of the self-styled Losers’ Club are now adults and tormented once again not just by the nightmarish Pennywise, but also a local psychopath. Swedish actor Bill Skarsgard veers between self-pitying pathetic and magnificent malevolence as the rabbit-toothed Pennywise, and gleefully torments a great cast which includes James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader.
As Chastain typically plays strong, confident characters, it’s all the more disturbing to see her fragile and desperate.
Few actors can switch between emotional states as quickly and convincingly as McAvoy, and Hader is a caustic and cowardly delight as an off-duty stand-up comic.
They’re so great together and generate so much convincing chemistry that it’s a pity they’re split up for the movie’s lengthy middle section, which demands each collect an artefact of personal importance in order to perform a supernatural rite to kill Pennywise.
After a stomach-churning opening featuring a thoroughly nasty assault at a fairground, we’re plunged into a world of Native American shamanic rituals, domestic abuse and mind-twisting scary horror.
This compares favourably with the very best of King big-screen adaptations, and next month Ewan McGregor stars in a sequel to The Shining, called Doctor Sleep.
Until then, let Pennywise give you your nightly dose of nightmares.