Director: Andy Muschietti
Writers: Chase Palmer (Screenplay)
Cary Fukunaga (Screenplay)
Gary Dauberman (Screenplay)
Stephen King (Novel)
Runtime: 2hr 15minutes
Plot: A group of children is terrorized by a killer clown that only they can see while also dealing with problems at home and a fairly unhinged bully. The kids come together, calling themselves "the losers club" in an effort to kill the clown.
DISCLAIMER: I haven't yet read the book, I will eventually when I have about 5 or so years to spare to get through that brick of a book. Don't hate me. I'm broke and constantly exhausted, I will get to it at some point I promise.
I don't know what to think of this film. I wasn't expecting much considering King adaptations are pretty hit and miss, especially with remakes *cough cough" Carrie was too pretty in the remake which made it totally unbelievable that she was the plain girl so despised as described in the book and the '76 film *cough cough*. But I went because...it's almost Halloween and I'm down for any attempt at filling in for Tim Curry and the trailers looked a little more hardcore than the mini-series. I wasn't expecting to see it with Ben considering he isn't the horror movie type. I wasn't expecting to be as spooked as I was. And I definitely wasn't expecting to not know how I feel after watching it. I still don't know how I feel after a few days after watching it so...maybe once I've written this out I will. Probably not but we'll find out, right? 'Kay, let's get to it.
First, we're gonna talk about the elephant in the room. Tim Curry as a cultural icon as Pennywise. Tim (to me at least) will always be the best Pennywise, it's just more believable that kids will want to go with him into the sewer and die rather than this genuinely freaky guy who occasionally looks like he's lost his memory and his eyes float in random directions. Kids have incredible intuition, they're not stupid, if they get a bad vibe from someone they're most likely going to combine that with "stranger danger" stories (I'm certain the 80's would have had them to a degree) and kids would stay away. Tim Curry is the better clown in the technical sense to lure kids in but...credit where it's due, Skarsgård is a scary clown. Just gotta pick your poison. (Tim is the best.) The film definitely didn't forget about Tim, and in a scene where Richie (Finn Wolfhard) is trapped in a room full of clown dolls, there's a Tim Curry Pennywise doll hidden in the back.
With that out of the way, let's get praising this thing. The tense scenes are done extremely well. There's a build-up where you know what's going to happen, a jump scare, but the way it's built up you can't exactly predict when it's going to happen and it waits until the exact moment you let your guard down, get you. Very effective. Especially in this one scene not fully shown in the trailers but...holy hell man, it is scary when that trailer scene carries on in the film.
Another good thing is character development and accurate representation of kids. The kids grew as they should have the way they should have and even though some (most) of the time it's on Bill (Jaeden Lieberher), Beverly (Sophia Lillis) and sometimes Richie, it works enough.
CGI. If you've been keeping up with what I write then you'll knowI'm not a huge fan of it. I feel like it's a cheap and lazy way to throw in jumpscares and I'll admit, you can do some things with practical effects some of it has to be done with computers. It looks pretty good in some places, hell in some places I got a bit scared of what was going on. There's a scene towards the end where IT is opening it's mouth and it looks so reminiscent of Geena Davis' scary head in Beetlejuice which I thought was pretty good and looks like there was a lot of hard work that went into this.
CGI. If you've been keeping up with what I write then you'll knowI'm not a huge fan of it. I feel like it's a cheap and lazy way to throw in jumpscares and I'll admit, you can do some things with practical effects some of it has to be done with computers. It looks pretty good in some places, hell in some places I got a bit scared of what was going on. There's a scene towards the end where IT is opening it's mouth and it looks so reminiscent of Geena Davis' scary head in Beetlejuice which I thought was pretty good and looks like there was a lot of hard work that went into this.
Now for the good stuff...The bad stuff...
Why doesn't this clown just take these kids out? I get that he likes to get the kids as scared as they possibly can be but...I think that scene with the projector woulda done it. Sunlight shouldn't have stopped this guy eating everything up. He just keeps fucking with these kids instead of just eating them. Also also, why did Pennywise attack Georgie? This kid was just a little scared because his brother made him the boat and thought he'd kill him. Did the clown fuck with Georgie for a while too or was he just that hungry? Man, I don't know. It's probably explained in the book.
Barely any time was dedicated to Mike (Chosen Jacobs), like...at all. There was this really interesting afterthought of him learning to work on the farm and get over not wanting to put a bolt through a sheeps head. Honestly, most of the focus was on Beverly and Bill and, while I'm not against it, I would have liked to see more of the kids. Go into why Richie was scared of clowns (I think?), I'd have loved to see more of Ben's life considering it just looks like he's getting bullied because...he's new and has no friends and he's fat I guess. There may have been an actual reason but I really don't get it. As I said before these kids did develop the way they should have considering the time given to them, it's just a shame that we don't get a lot of time with all of them.
Speaking of time actually, if most of these scary scenes where Pennywise is just terrorizing the kids for the sake of it, went on for another minute or so to properly get their reactions after the event. It feels like it cuts away just a little too quickly. If there was just this extra moment of calm down time it'd be great, better than what it is.
CGI time again. As I said earlier, some of the computer generated stuff looks good, but some of it looks like it was hashed out in half an hour for a creepypasta I mean...look at this.
What the fuck is that? Take a minute to absorb how terrible that is, go on, I don't mind. Take as long as you need. I'm aware it looks like a drawing but it isn't. I mean...that looks fucking terrible. CGI is canceled 'til you guys learn how to not make it look...like that. I mean it's not the worst in the world, I've seen worse I promise you, but you know, could have tried a little harder. I mean it is only on screen for like half a second but, people are law breakers these days, they film and take pictures in the cinema. This stuff gets out faster than it should.
Pennywise the dancing clown is also a fun little...thing. Whether it was meant to be scary or just silly I don't know but I saw a clip of it on Facebook a day or two before I saw the film and I thought "Wow...that can't be in the film, looks so stupid and looks so fake. Nah, that's not in there." And to mine and everybody else's pure joy, it was. God bless Hollywood. Why is it in my negative notes? Because it's dumb. Next.
Pennywise's movements while scary in a cool mechanical sort of sense in some scenes also looks fucking hilarious in others. Like when he runs and violently shakes his head and body, man that cracked me up. It looked so terrible. At first I thought it was just something in the trailers that looked a little weird but nope. That's his attack method sometimes and it looks so stupid it's hilarious.
The final thing about Pennywise, what's the reason for him going a little dead-eyed sometimes? Maybe it's in the book but it looks like he's having a senior moment every now and then. I suppose it comes with being an age-old evil entity but...I didn't get it.
That's it from me with this, I still don't know how I feel about it but I'll definitely go see it again and get a definite opinion. I love the miniseries and this was a good gory / less camp update on that but at the same time I don't know how into it I was. Not like my opinion matters. The only person's opinion who really matters on this is King's, and he apparently loved it so much he went back and saw it again. I would advise you go see this though, regardless of King's and my own opinions. Just don't see it if you're not down for almost cat murder and big ol' clowns.
Anyway, that's me done, peace out, stay hydrated and remember, we all float.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film please go and support its creators by buying tickets to go see it in cinemas / buying the DVD or Bluray when the time comes.
Why doesn't this clown just take these kids out? I get that he likes to get the kids as scared as they possibly can be but...I think that scene with the projector woulda done it. Sunlight shouldn't have stopped this guy eating everything up. He just keeps fucking with these kids instead of just eating them. Also also, why did Pennywise attack Georgie? This kid was just a little scared because his brother made him the boat and thought he'd kill him. Did the clown fuck with Georgie for a while too or was he just that hungry? Man, I don't know. It's probably explained in the book.
Barely any time was dedicated to Mike (Chosen Jacobs), like...at all. There was this really interesting afterthought of him learning to work on the farm and get over not wanting to put a bolt through a sheeps head. Honestly, most of the focus was on Beverly and Bill and, while I'm not against it, I would have liked to see more of the kids. Go into why Richie was scared of clowns (I think?), I'd have loved to see more of Ben's life considering it just looks like he's getting bullied because...he's new and has no friends and he's fat I guess. There may have been an actual reason but I really don't get it. As I said before these kids did develop the way they should have considering the time given to them, it's just a shame that we don't get a lot of time with all of them.
Speaking of time actually, if most of these scary scenes where Pennywise is just terrorizing the kids for the sake of it, went on for another minute or so to properly get their reactions after the event. It feels like it cuts away just a little too quickly. If there was just this extra moment of calm down time it'd be great, better than what it is.
CGI time again. As I said earlier, some of the computer generated stuff looks good, but some of it looks like it was hashed out in half an hour for a creepypasta I mean...look at this.
What the fuck is that? Take a minute to absorb how terrible that is, go on, I don't mind. Take as long as you need. I'm aware it looks like a drawing but it isn't. I mean...that looks fucking terrible. CGI is canceled 'til you guys learn how to not make it look...like that. I mean it's not the worst in the world, I've seen worse I promise you, but you know, could have tried a little harder. I mean it is only on screen for like half a second but, people are law breakers these days, they film and take pictures in the cinema. This stuff gets out faster than it should.
Pennywise the dancing clown is also a fun little...thing. Whether it was meant to be scary or just silly I don't know but I saw a clip of it on Facebook a day or two before I saw the film and I thought "Wow...that can't be in the film, looks so stupid and looks so fake. Nah, that's not in there." And to mine and everybody else's pure joy, it was. God bless Hollywood. Why is it in my negative notes? Because it's dumb. Next.
Pennywise's movements while scary in a cool mechanical sort of sense in some scenes also looks fucking hilarious in others. Like when he runs and violently shakes his head and body, man that cracked me up. It looked so terrible. At first I thought it was just something in the trailers that looked a little weird but nope. That's his attack method sometimes and it looks so stupid it's hilarious.
The final thing about Pennywise, what's the reason for him going a little dead-eyed sometimes? Maybe it's in the book but it looks like he's having a senior moment every now and then. I suppose it comes with being an age-old evil entity but...I didn't get it.
That's it from me with this, I still don't know how I feel about it but I'll definitely go see it again and get a definite opinion. I love the miniseries and this was a good gory / less camp update on that but at the same time I don't know how into it I was. Not like my opinion matters. The only person's opinion who really matters on this is King's, and he apparently loved it so much he went back and saw it again. I would advise you go see this though, regardless of King's and my own opinions. Just don't see it if you're not down for almost cat murder and big ol' clowns.
Anyway, that's me done, peace out, stay hydrated and remember, we all float.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film please go and support its creators by buying tickets to go see it in cinemas / buying the DVD or Bluray when the time comes.
