Film Review: "IT" (2017)

3 1/2 out of 5

Warning: Spoilers

I'm hard pressed to find the right way to explain how I feel after finishing this new adaptation of Stephen King's spooky clown opus. Is it good? Yeah, it's a fun movie. Is it scary? To me, personally, no.

And that's my first real noticeable disappointment. I actually had a fear going into this movie that watching a bunch of small children being disembowled and eaten would be too much for me now that I've become a parent. Since having kids I've had a harder time watching some of the more gruesome stuff in horror, as dorky as that sounds. I heard that the opening scene when little Georgie encounters Pennywise was shocking which drove my imagination wild. My minds eye concocted a scene that was much more intense than what the movie offered up. As that scene wrapped I was equally relieved because I didn't really want to see a small boy brutalized and underwhelmed because what did happen felt sillier than I expected. 

What I eventually came to realize is that this new big screen Pennywise, replete with a mouth of shark like teeth and a shifting voice, is very much a modern version of Slasher icon Freddy Krueger. He's a form changing otherworldly child killer who preys on teens who have ineffectual parents by manipulating their fears. He also inhabits a burned out building on the edge of town no one ever seems to notice or care about. Sound familiar? 

It's not shocking that New Line Cinema produced this and is loving referred to as "the house that Freddy built", and whether or not they intentionally raided their own IP, it's hard to ignore the Elm Street vibes that run deep in this version of 1989 Derry. In one instance the kids even zip passed a theatre that's showing Nightmare 5. Winking nod or thinly veiled admittance to conceptual appropriation? You be the judge!

In a way it feels like this is a circlular "chicken or the egg or the chicken or the egg..." kind of thing. The original Nightmare released in 1984 and King's gargantuan novel came out in 1986; The last canonical Elm Street movie released in 1991, one year after the ABC miniseries version of "IT". Part of me wants to scream "plaigarism!" but I think that both of these works were churned out of whatever cultural zeitgeist happened in the 80's that made us yearn for child murdering maniacs.

That both these characters inevitably found themselves properties of the same studio is probably happenstancial, but it's difficult to not draw comparisons. It's even harder to not wonder if we aren't supposed to draw comparisons when everything in mainstream genre fiction is all hinged upon emotionally manipulating our nostalgia.

Speaking of audience manipulation, let's talk about the score. Current horror films are reliant on an overbearing score that quiets and booms on cue with the film to lead us into moments and then startle us with a very loud sound. I first noticed this with "Sinister". Every time anything scary was on screen the music became deafening and culminated in a sharp blast. This movie does that same exact thing. You, as an audience member, know Pennywise is somewhere because the music just went up a few notches in volume so by the time the big scary moment happens you're ready for it. 

I could gripe about little things in the movie that bug me, like Ben giving the expository history of Derry and Pennywise's 27 year "eat/hybrinate" cycle in a way that feels rushed and unnatural, or all the New Kids On The Block bullshit, but the score is my biggest problem. It completely ruins anything that might be legitimately scary in this movie. There are genuinely creepy visuals and ideas but the movie isn't content to let us decide for ourselves what is or isn't scary, so it uses the score to guide us by the hand through every scene. Meddlesome to a fault, this score implies that the studio was fearful of the visceral subject matter to such a degree that they employed a manipulative score to soften the blows and occasional violence, ultimately rendering the very nature of the horror onscreen into a softer neutered state. This movie could've been a disturbing work of horror that tested audiences, but ended up being more in line with 80's Slashers and popcorn spookfests like The Grudge. I feel goofy saying that an R rated film about a child eating clown that features children in peril is timid, but that's the truth: "It" is afraid to go too far. 

I don't want to come off like I hated this film. It's a fun distraction. It looks great, has excellent cinematography, and is well paced. Like its similarly nostalgic analogue "Stranger Things" the kids steal the show. All the main kids and even the lead bully turn in solid performances. Pennywise is is also great as that kind of murdering antagonist that leaves you questioning whether or not you should root for him or for his potential victims. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how Bill Skarsgard imparts him with a malevolent glee that is wholly intoxicating. 

"It" isn't great and only time will tell if it will become a horror classic. I liked it. I ate a tub of salty popcorn and drank a gallon of Coca Cola and mostly lost myself for two hours in the ensuing melee. As a haunted house amusement ride for the Halloween season I can't recommend it enough. Just don't expect a challenging work of horror that will play with your expectations.
But don't take my word for it, go see "A Nightmare On Clown Street: Chapter 1" before the sequels and interconnected universes follow!