not super scary but very well made

Rating: 8/10 (12 September 2017)

It's 1988 in the small town of Derry, Maine. Bill Denbrough makes a paper boat for little brother Georgie. Georgie plays with it in the rain and it floats down into the sewers. He encounters Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) and we're off. Bill faces the loss of Georgie with his friends Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, and Stanley Uris. They are bullied along with new kid Ben Hanscom, home-schooled Mike Hanlon, and abused girl Beverly Marsh. There is a series of missing kids and Ben may have uncovered the disturbing cause.
I am not a reader but I did watch the mini-series many years ago (not as a kid). It struck me right away that it obviously needed to be split into two movies. The kids' side could be a great horror and I didn't care for the adults' side that much. It's a decade later and they've made the kids' part of the novel. There are two trailers which really caught everybody's eye and peaked my interest.
This is like a darker and more brutal Goonies or more likely, a Stand By Me with more gore. It's not a slasher torture porn. It's not super scary but that's not the objective. Honestly, I laughed more than I was scared. It is surprisingly rather funny. It is super well made. Even the cinematography is beautiful. The kids have amazing chemistry. Each one is an individual. They are fun together and natural. Their stories are honest and brutal. This version of Pennywise is creepy and much more a monster than the teasetastic Tim Curry. There are jump scares but the movie does not rely on them. They aren't that big anyways and the one with Beverly is already given away in the trailer. I would put this comfortably on the same level as the two iconic coming-of-age movies previously mentioned.