Chessy like a cheese sandwich made with an entire wheel of cheese.

Rating: 5/10 (27 September 2017)

I went to see 'IT' armed ready with the criticism of the film not being scary enough, and tried to view it as suggested- a mildly chilling adventure story. The problem with changing my point of view to suit this film is that I could really sense the makers trying like a dad in a Halloween costume to scare the audience. Since the films monster lives and thrives of fear it seemed strange to me that the film itself didn't engage the concept of generating suspense. There were many moments where the changing manifestation of IT would pop out of nowhere and try and be 'scary' with out much lead up and I just wasn't buying it. These scary creature sequences had my mind distracted with thinking 'this is a person in a costume doing a silly walk'. I think it was definitely a fault of the film to show too much and too quickly. I was really hoping for the, 'breath on the back of the neck' atmosphere you get when the impending horror slowly creeps up on you but I was was almost never transported into the world where these threats exist. There were definitely problems with the script. Whilst I found many of the characters likable and interesting; I did find that I wasn't convinced in people's reactions to events in the film. Moments after something grotesquely horrific happened the characters seemed to make miraculous emotional recoveries. The film had the sensibility of a cheesy 80's quest film but without the charm of it being actually made in the the 80's. If this film was made a few decades ago, i'd probably have grown up fondly ignoring the errors however, it wasn't and therefore I cannot ignore the clunky flow of the film, the lack of fear and the cheese on toast that was the dialogue. As much as this film wasn't for me I do have to praise how it kept me entertained even when sceptical as the worst thing a film can be is boring and 'IT' never was. I also thought there was an amazing craft behind appearance of 'IT' as he was beautifully Gothic looking like an Pagliacci clown, and was striking with every appearance! I also really enjoyed the performance of Sophie Lilis who had a captivating charm about her and I thought her challenging range of emotions where convincing. What 'IT' does have going for it; is a really great score and an empowering message about strength, bravery and uniting as a team.