It 2 Beautay? Yes, By Caesar's Ghost.

Rating: 8/10 (24 November 2019)

I think of "Annabelle" and "Stranger Things" as the beginning of the cinematic encroachment on children. If there's any part of these two films defined as something that couldn't have been made even a few years ago, it's not the special effects. It's the graphic depiction of violence against kids. Or sexual violence. Or child sexualization. But this film also stars Jessica Chastain, who on her own would have steered this right, if "It: Chapter Two" were not clearly shaped by healthy input from all the marvelous actors. Their moral compass may have helped to keep this film's tone absolutely solid throughout a tangle of issues. (And if you know the book, you know it's not their fault.)
Now I always see horror films in terms of cruelty versus sincerity, both with the filmmakers and with the audience. Horror is mostly about cruelty, but the stand it takes on that issue defines a film (and filmmaker) (and audience) for me. This movie is trying to straddle both worlds. It mostly succeeds. These days tone is all-important to filmmakers, since any movie that sucks tonally is going to suck overall, regardless of how good it is. (Fellini was especially prone to this, I think. Try watching "Juliet Of The Spirits".) These days studios have all stepped up to the challenge, and here we see a great example of walking the tightrope and not losing balance. If a moment seems about to devolve into being unintentionally funny, the movie usually seizes that opportunity to do something *intentionally* funny. The cruel people will laugh, and the sincere people will take it as grotesque. Considering that a good third of either installment is just a rush of plot points, maintaining a trustworthy tone is quite a feat.
Is it scary? If you're daring it to scare you, no. (Movies don't scare you if you're daring them to.) But at a slow burn, it's there. (For adults. Do *not* let little kids watch this. If they take it at a slow burn it could be traumatizing.) Horror has developed since the wave of gore films in the 80s to things like torture and jump scares, and seems to now be landing on nightmare. I think that's the wisest thing horror could do. (More properly, it's landed on nightmare and cruelty. "Hereditary" is a good example of horror that I'm sure only plays properly to sadists.) "It: Chapter Two" doesn't just fend off unintentional comedy, or just fend off someone's expectations of a scary image, there's a feeling of recognition in these scary images. Mining nightmares yields up the most universal symbols of fear. Those are the horror scenes we've all actually been in before. And since nightmares are common scenes we all nonetheless write ourselves, if one of us writes that out to a script, we should be witnessing our own inner lives. That's part of why it could really hurt kids, if they see it. As constructed as it is, it's very real.