King done right

Rating: 9/10 (14 September 2017)

I was having a difficult time tempering my hype level for this one. I was so looking forward to Ghost in the Shell and Valerian earlier this year, but I couldn't have been more disappointed with what I was given with those. With my luck so far, I thought I was in for strike three. It turns out I had nothing to be afraid of. Except for Pennywise, of course.
From the opening scene, the director makes it clear that the boundaries have been pushed all the way back, setting the tone that anything can happen from here on out. It goes beyond your typical jump scares. It's uncomfortable, creepy, and twisted.
Between those elements, however, is a surprising amount of humor. In the other versions, the character of Richie Tozier was annoying to the point of him almost ruining the scenes he was in. In this version he's played by Finn Wolfhard (probably the best name in Hollywood) and he's actually my favorite character. I don't think I've genuinely laughed out loud that many times in the theater this year. While other horror movies will have a tension-cutting quip or two, this movie has successfully comedic writing throughout.
While Richie was my favorite, all the kids are truly incredible. It's difficult enough to get an impressive performance out of one child actor, let alone seven, but director Andy Muschietti seemingly does the impossible. Not long into the film I strangely stopped seeing them as kids and just saw them as the people they were portraying.
There's no denying that there are the nostalgia factors of the book and the campy miniseries, but so much of what makes this movie great is what it does to set itself apart from all that. I never found myself thinking "Hey, that wasn't in the book!", but rather "Oh crap, I don't know what's about to happen here." I didn't expect to be kept on my toes with so much original content, and I certainly didn't expect that I'd be OK with that.
I was hoping for a lot out of this movie and it absolutely delivered. IT somehow manages to be the scariest and funniest movie I've seen this year. A contradiction I couldn't be more pleased about. 8.5/10