creepy, with a talented director at the helm

Rating: 8/10 (10 September 2017)

IT, directed by Andres Muschietti, fires on all of the cylinders it has to, and I think my perspective on it is that it does so much that impresses, aside from attempting and mostly succeeding at adapting the ambition of King's book, is that it does a lot that horror movies today DON'T do. This movie doesn't, for example, over-crowd you with jump scares; oh, it has a couple, don't get me wrong, but they aren't so distracting that it ruins the movie (or, for that matter, have the final shot of the film be the character lunging at the camera, like it's a theme park ride and we need one more "good" scare), and Andy Muschietti and his DP (who usually shoots Park Chanwook films) pour on the atmosphere here while at the same time NOT doing the thing where horror movies drain the color palette or make things blue. This is a director who trusts the audience and, as the opening weekend would show, it seems to have paid off.
He's also attentive to casting everyone just right (only the young actor playing Stan Uris feels like he's just 'okay', but that may be because everyone around him, especially the actors playing Bill and Beverly, are so fully invested in their roles, and by the way casting one of the main kids from Stranger Things to be Richie is so on the nose I love it), and to making Derry feel like a real place - or, if not *as* much as the book does, as much as can be done in a two-hour movie. There are certainly predictable parts to the narrative, as there may have been to its source (mostly this is felt for me when it gets to the second act end and into the third, with some of the CGI in the climax being less than impressive - oh, some of it is really good, and some of it... is not).
On top of everything else, Skarsgard surprises with a sinister interpretation of Pennywise. You won't get another Tim Curry performance, you just can't really, but the direction Skarsgard goes in is full of a darkness but also... well, let's put it this way, once you see that scene between Pennywise and Georgie in the opening by the sewer drain, you can believe that this clown *might* appeal to small, impressionable children before, literally, feeding off their fear as well as flesh. It's a turn where every time he came on screen and did something (with the exception of those couple of jump-scares, which made the trailer give the impression it would not be so solid), I was smiling in not a scared expression but simply being entertained by a performer giving it his all. I really hope he gets to do a lot more things as an actor because this is a star-making turn.
In closing: the critic who said in one review, "This is not the best Stephen King movie, but it comes close, but it is the MOST Stephen King movie" hit it on the head. It isn't great overall and yet I had a blast watching it from start to finish: it's emotional and dramatic and earns those beats; it shows friendship in childhood as a powerful and necessary thing to have and keep a hold of; it's there to scare the hell out of you if you're open to it; and it shows how a good lot of people are... really f***ing creepy. One last thing: it doesn't over-do it's 80's references, and if they're used it's either for actual plant & pay-off in the story (i.e. New Kids on the Block) or a thematic connection (Nightmare on Elm Street 5 is playing at a local theater? You don't say) 8.5/10