IT'S SCARY
Old-school scares lurk within enjoyable ‘It’ reboot
You have to guard against the inner fanboy. • When you’re reviewing a movie, at least, if not buying a ticket for one. But it can be hard. • So take my enjoyment of “It” with a grain of salt if you must, but know that I am not in the tank for anyone. Not even Stephen King, whose writing I quite enjoy. • But this is a really fun movie. Good, too. Not great, but old-school in its approach to scares and, even better, in its approach to the relationships between kids, outsiders who band together to try to take down a monstrous evil. And maybe flirt a little while they’re at it.
‘It’ ★★★★ Director: Andy Muschietti. Cast: Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard. Rating: R for violence/horror, bloody images and language. Great eeeee Good eeee Fair eee Bad ee Bomb e
If you’ve read the novel, or saw the 1990 television miniseries with a spectacularly over-the-top Tim Curry as Pennywise the clown, you’re in for some surprises with director Andy Muschietti’s version. The action has been fast-forwarded from the 1950s to the late 1980s (though it definitely retains the ’50s vibe in almost all ways). Plus, half the story’s missing. In a good way. King’s massive novel tells of a group of kids who call themselves the Losers Club in the town of Derry, Maine. Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) is the quasi-leader; he has the most stake in the game, for reasons revealed early on. He’s joined by Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), Richie (Finn Wolfhard), Mike (Chosen Jacobs), Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Stanley (Wyatt Oleff), along with the sole girl, Beverly (Sophia Lillis). She’s tougher than the boys combined, which of course makes her the instant object of their affections (and catalyst for their jealousies).
The kids of Derry are being menaced by a terrible evil which often takes the shape of a clown named Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård, appropriately psychotic). (Note: If you have a phobia about clowns, this really is not the movie for you.)
The kids join together and figure out that It, as they dub it, shows up every 27 years in Derry, feeding on fear and feasting on flesh, as Pennywise puts it.
All that’s there in this version, in somewhat changed form. What’s missing entirely is when the kids, now adults scattered around the country, come back to Derry to confront and kill It once and for all. (Reportedly a sequel will follow.) It’s missing, but not missed. While there are plenty of scares and gore — the film earns its R rating with an opening that follows the novel closely — the best part is the depiction of life as a kid in a small town. Each of the seven members of the Losers Club has some challenge at home, to varying degrees. It knows this and plays off that. It’s the bonding of the kids that is most effective, as they come together with a common goal.
There must be, of course, difficulties along the way, breaking apart and coming back together, and it’s that coming back together that is the weakest part of the movie. It’s sort of like, “Oh, we can never be friends again. (Pause) Wait, you want to get the gang back together? I’ll be right over.”
That’s not a deal-breaker. The kids’ performances are all on the mark and Skarsgård likely will haunt many dreams. Muschietti and cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung paint with bold colors — there’s the infamous red balloon — and give Derry a lived-in feel. Parents are either evil or non-existent. This is a kids’ world, and it feels like it.
I’m on record as touting King as a really good and underrated writer — when he wants to be. I may have read “Salem’s Lot” more than any other novel. I’m also a big horror-movie fan, but I understand that the scorecard of King’s books turned into good movies is spotty, at best. Some really good stuff — “The Shining” is one of the greatest movies ever, let alone horror movies, but that has more to do with Stanley Kubrick than King; “The Shawshank Redemption” usually shows up somewhere on most people’s best-movies list, but it’s not a horror film — is greatly outnumbered by real dogs. Yes, I’m referencing “Cujo” here (ha), but the film adaptation of “The Dark Tower,” released this summer, also is just all kinds of terrible.
“It” isn’t a classic of the first order — it doesn’t invert the genre the way “The Shining” did — but it’s a more than worthy entry, a scary, occasionally scattered tale that makes for a surprisingly good time at the movies.