Overegging the pudding

Rating: 4/10 (16 September 2017)

I fell for the hype, at least enough to pay for cinema tickets instead of waiting for the DVD, so I thought I should add my voice to the less than glowing reviews of this film. This is not a groundbreaking new version of Stephen King's novel, merely a big screen translation for a new generation. That's not a bad thing - if you're the target demographic and think that jump scares and CGI maketh a horror film, you won't be disappointed. But if, like me, you're interested in a new interpretation of the story, then prepare to be distinctly underwhelmed. This take isn't a faithful adaptation, and the plot gets left behind for a series of nightmare scenes which don't even provide a sense of the characters or the setting when connected. Leaving behind the 1950s for the 1980s is also a mistake, because the children in King's story are possessed of the right amount of innocence to believe that a monster can be defeated with 'battery acid' from an inhaler or silver bullets. And even the 1980s are short-changed - retro t-shirts and the odd movie poster are not enough to instil a sense of time and place.
For all the fuss about the 'child orgy' scene in the novel, I feel that this 'reimagining' actually sexualises the children as much or more than King - the Losers club spend an afternoon swimming in a quarry, stripped down to their underwear, with the boys gawping at Beverly's underdeveloped chest. She is also given a reputation at school and a (single) father with an unhealthy interest in her, and instead of leading the group into the sewers with her slingshot, Beverly becomes a victim to be rescued by the boys - with a kiss! So dressing the character in boho dresses and cutting her hair doesn't make 2017 Beverly a stronger role model, in my eyes. At least King's Beverly is in control of her life and her body.
Mike Hanlon is also reduced from the narrator and lynchpin of the original story, collecting the history of the town and gathering the adults for a final showdown, to a token black character. I didn't get a true sense of any of the characters' personalities, to be truthful - only the Jewish boy, the Black kid, the Girl, the Fat Kid, the Hypochondriac. Richie is not even very funny. Pennywise is also reduced to blurry CGI - that weird shuffling run at the camera soon gets old - and Halloween costuming. Pennywise is not meant to look like Annabelle's big brother, he's supposed to entice children to him by being colourful and cheerful - at first. Pennywise is evil embodied in a creepy clown, he's not supposed to be considered 'cute' or 'hot', but casting baby-faced Bill Skarsgard for this 15 certificate remake was obviously a stroke of marketing genius.
The Muschietti's take on King's novel is a derivative mess, drawing on Stand By Me and E.T. for the kids and horror films like Annabelle, Insidious and even Nightmare on Elm Street (the bathroom scene, with the geysers of blood?) for the cheap scares. If IT was a classic novel studied in school, I would recommend the 1990 miniseries for students who want to cheat and skip the book. This version gives no sense of the story, and only brief sketches of the characters.