A decent reboot, but will never hold candle to the great Tim Curry

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2017)

I've seen the new movie, IT Chapter One, one late Saturday night, in keeping with the tradition of seeing the horror or thriller movie only on the late night.
The movie is obviously better than the broadcast television version in all aspects, due to high production value overall, but one thing is certain.
While Bill Skarsgård did a good job portraying the villain, Tim Curry is much more nuanced and thus creepier and scarier. It comes down to characterization.
Bill Skarsgård's character is way over the top in characterization, but maybe his portrayal is merely inspired by the novel. Tim Curry's characterization is perfect, which might well be one of the best portrayals of a horror-film villain in cinema history, that includes television.
The new movie is fairly faithful to the novel, with plenty of profanity uttered by the young actors. That might shock some prudes, but I don't have a problem with it. I swore a lot when I was a child on the verge of adolescence, as well as similarly curious about sensuality. No child is too (to wit, perfectly) innocent in development.
Of course, the new movie had to omit the more explicit scenes that involve sexuality as originated in the novel. Otherwise, there would be the "moral panic" protest over the "tamely filmed and sensibly edited" (implied) erotic scenes not unlike, say, The Last Temptation of Christ when that film came out in 1988, the same year this new movie takes place at the beginning.
I am more into psychological horror with slow pacing, which is so rare as to be non-existent. The classic movies with psychological terror plus slow pacing would be Jaws, The Changeling, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Shining and Japanese horror Ringu, the latter that to this day I consider one of the scariest movie watching experiences I had (the other "terrifying" movie-going experience would be Irreversible and I Stand Alone, both by the French auteur and provocateur Gaspar Noe, and both equally disorienting in harsh content and insane cinematography & editing), because of its mystery that led to the shocking and unexpected twist that blew my mind with my jaw dropping sense of palpable horror.
This said, I am very much a jaded moviegoer. This is why I was not even scared or phased when I saw the new movie, thanks to "cheap" jump scares with obvious CGI meshed with the makeup effects. Although a few "lingering" scenes, such as the bloody bathroom, impressed me in experiencing what it's like to go through the psychological terror.
Perhaps if the new IT movie have the emphasis on practical makeup effects, albeit more expensive than CGI, then it would easily scare me as well as many similarly jaded moviegoers who know cheap jump scare scenes when they see it, that cannot even make them jump at the seat. Unfortunately, CGI is the standard visual effects, and that lessened the scare factor of this movie. The good or mediocre "scariest" movies with practical makeup effects were last made in the 90's, in particular Hellraiser series, notably Part III.
With all this said, the young cast did a fine job, given the intense adapted screenplay with heavy language and other risqué content. I know that if my young nieces and nephews ask me to take them to see this movie, I might hesitate not because of its scary and nightmarish scenes and the villain but because of its language alone that would be a bad influence.
I look forward to the second chapter, now that Chapter One is expected to be a big box office hit. It hit all the right notes, but it cannot hold the candle to Tim Curry. He should have returned to the role, instead of a relatively young actor who nearly hams it up portraying Pennywise the Demonic Clown.
By the way, although I disagree with the novelist Stephen King's shrill politics lately (he gets a cut of the royalty from the success of the new IT franchise and merchandise), I had to see the new version of IT, because hype -- the first release of the movie teaser and trailer that saw tens of millions of view count -- justifies the commendable quality of this movie. The author was so impressed that he praised the movie in a tweet earlier this year.