A Funhouse Thrill Ride

Rating: 8/10 (11 September 2017)

The hot early, summer sun hits the tiny hamlet of Derry much like any other. Kids empty the démodé 50's style school house on the last day of school like inmates scurrying away from work detail. The Tutor style bungalows and quaint farmhouses fade into the rolling hills. The library, the druggist, the tiny two-house movie theater, all prominent features in what is by all accounts an idyllic New England town. The fact that the disappearance rate in Derry is six times the national average is a little known but morbid detail that most ignore. That is until the summer of '89.
This is when seven friends collectively known as the Losers' Club first realize that something is amiss. Bill (Lieberher) the self-assured leader of the pack becomes convinced that many of Derry's child disappearances can be attributed to a shape shifting demon that lures his victims into the sewers to be consumed. Bill has a personal stake in this scenario, as his brother Georgie (Scott) was carried off during the fall. Now he fears he and his friends might be next.
This movie has been a long time coming and in 2017, the stage couldn't have been more set. Stephen King fans have been pining for a theatrical version of It about as much as general audiences have recently been looking for yet another nostalgia trip to rub their back and tell them "shh it's fine, the 80's were as good as you remember them." 27 years since the release of the miniseries and a little over a year since the release of Stranger Things (2016-present), it's inarguable that the stars couldn't have been more aligned for It. If I were a short-sighted, no-nothing Hollywood producer I'd say the pressure's off on It being any good. It's going to make money regardless so why put forth the effort? Well I'm glad to say the film's large slate of producers and director Andy Muschietti did not skimp on the good stuff. It is a fun, thrilling, endlessly entertaining horror show whose artfully rendered atmospherics is paired well with some really stellar child acting. It's briskly paced and ludicrously creepy with Bill Skarsgard turning in a monster star-making performance as the devious Pennywise. I'm actually kind of shocked It is as good as it is! Lieberher, Lillis, Wolfhard et al. all turn in masterful performances as the young indomitable kids who take on the menacing Pennywise. Grazer and Taylor specifically breathe incredible life into their roles as Eddie the hypochondriac and Ben the (cough, cough) new kid on the block. Though each child actor has such immediate chemistry among each other that I'm confident audiences will walk away with the room roughly split between them all.
The screenplay as written by Cary Fukunaga, Chase Palmer and Gary Dauberman gives the kids incredible opportunity to show off their range and Muschietti seems hell-bent on reinforcing the film as character first; an instinct he previously honed in Mama (2013), his similarly themed debut film. Yet even if you remember that film, nothing can prepare you for just how good this sophomore film is; how scary, how funny, how heartfelt and how violent it is.
And can we just take a moment to talk about Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise? I don't want to say its perfect casting as the villainous child-eating demon is less of a character than a force of pure evil. Plus to the nostalgically inclined, nothing can beat Tim Curry. Yet as an angrier, more primal version of Pennywise, the Scandinavian actor has the intensity, presence and uncomfortable seductiveness necessary to bend the role to his will. He's not so much better as he is different – like Jack Nicholson's Joker when compared to Heath Ledger.
Of course the film is not without its faults, the largest of which is there are considerably less scares than expected. Don't get me wrong, the scares are there, they're memorable and they're earned, but the increasing suspense becomes more heart-pounding than spine tingling as the film wears on. Considering the novel is a seminal work of modern horror, one can be jarred by liberal injections of summertime horseplay and kid-styled humor – not to mention taken out of the movie entirely with so-so VFX. Additionally the reductive sexualization of fifteen-year-old Sophia Lillis who plays the loser's only female companion is a bit of a minus. Even though believe me given the book; it could have been so much worse.
And yes as with any book to film adaptation, It does shorten, cut out, thematically alter and otherwise change swaths of the original story in service of making a quicker, cleaner movie. Being a Stephen King adaptation, It walks an even tighter line untangling the interconnected mythos of its tale. One can't help but think that if the funhouse frights were given more time to coalesce with the stories most primordial horrors, It could have transcended from being a great killer clown movie to a great movie period.
As it stands however, It is so much better than it needs to be, providing an equal mix of genuine genre thrills and gregarious nostalgia. It's a wild ride of vivid, macabre amusements. It's a great looking piece of pop entertainment. It's a breezy, fun and fiendish coming-of-age saga. It's It.