IT Horrified Me

Rating: 8/10 (4 December 2018)

I was a bit apprehensive when I heard about the new adaptation of Stephen King's IT because I have a fear of clowns and horror movies just don't seem to scare me anymore. However, IT has most certainly managed to horrify me in the most amazing and scary ways possible.
Set in the the late 80's, IT follows a band of bullied teenagers from a town called Derry who face their worst fears when a shape-shifting creature starts snatching children from the streets. Together the children set out to banish both the creature and their tormentors which takes them on a harrowing journey through adolescence.
What made this film particularly terrifying was not so much the cannibal shape-shifting creature that was killing the children but rather the situations the children had to face both at home and at school. Here you have a town that is in disarray and teenagers free to roam about the streets without any proper parental guidance, resulting in a horrifying portrayal of everything that can go wrong with parenting.
The brutal and real-to-life portrayal of bullying gave me the creeps and made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. From innocent name-calling to the brutal attack on a boy with a knife, IT covered the whole scope of bullying and painted a horrifying image of what children are capable of.
Moreover, there was no end to the acting talent in this film with Jaeden Lieberher as Bill Denbrough and Sophie Lillis as Beverley Marsh, not to mention Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise. Lieberher whom I have encountered in other films was astounding in his role as Bill. He portrayed a stuttering, grieving older brother with great ease and managed to captivate me from the beginning. Sophie Lillis whom I have never seen before IT, was brilliant in her role as Beverley Marsh and Bill Skarsgard made a pretty impressive cannibal clown.
Aesthetically, the film had everything you would find in a horror movie -- gratuitous violence, blood and gore, a shape-shifting monster and jump scares that would have frightened me more if they weren't so predictable.
Nonetheless, IT is a coming-of-age story that portrays everything that could possibly go wrong in childhood and how significant events can impact who we grow up to be. Dealing with themes such as bullying, child abuse, teenage hormonal angst and grief in such a horrifying way, makes IT one of the best horrors of it's time.