It Review
It is a 2017 horror film written by Chase Palmer/Cary Fukunaga/Gary Dauberman and directed by Andy Muschietti. Based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Stephen King, the film was a box office smash grossing $58 million in its opening weekend. It's also garnered very positive review scores, with an 85% on the critic cite Rotten Tomatoes.
Disclaimer: a lot of this will sound very similar to the Nostalgia Critic's review of the film since I have most of the same things to say about it. While I did see the review before I saw the film and this most likely effected my viewing experience, I believe that I have distanced myself enough from that review in order to give my genuine thoughts and feelings on the film.
Story
After his little brother goes missing, Billy (Jaedon Lierberher) begins searching for clues as to what happened to him. During his search, he comes across and makes friends with a group of town misfits and they discover that they've all seen a strange, horrifying vision: an evil clown called Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård). Eventually deducing that Pennywise is responsible for a string of recent child disappearances, they decide to ban together and stop it.
The pacing for the film is really good. It's really quickly paced, keeping you intrigued in the slower moments and terrified/laughing in the scary moments so you're never bored. But it's not so insecure that it feels like it has to constantly go fast. With many horror movies, they feel the need to get right into scaring you, pacing be damned. And while they do have one really big scare at the beginning, even that is pretty well paced. We get to see how Billy truly cared about his brother, it takes its time building up to the scare and even the scare itself is slow paced in a way. It has enough faith in its audience that it can spend time fleshing out the characters and the town they live in without the audience getting bored.
That part is probably helped by the fact that the kid characters are all really enjoyable. They're funny underdogs, which immediately helps us form a connection with them. They're bullied which, while it's a huge outdated cliche, I'm willing to give a pass to since the book was one of the first to implement these tropes. Speaking of which, that's pretty much what all of the kids are: tropes. Outside of a few of the kids, I couldn't even tell you their names. I could name them by their trope roles (leader, fat kid, token girl, black kid, Jewish kid), but that's literally it. However, again, they're still pretty enjoyable, which definitely helps you to forget about their lack of identity.
It didn't help distract me, however, from the fact that the film is tonally all over the place. In some scenes, it manages to balance tone well, as I feel a lot of other Stephen King movies have been able to do, shifting smoothly from drama to humor and then horror without much of a whiplash. However, when it's bad, it's really bad. There are just so many times when the tone you think they should be going for is completely at odds with what they're actually doing. In fact, half the time I didn't know what they were trying to do. For example, there's a scene where the kids are cleaning up a bathroom full of blood. That's all fine and good, except they're doing it while a peppy 80s song is playing. Why? How does that match with anything that's going on in the scene or the one that came before it with the creepy pedo dad? It makes no sense and all it did was confuse me. There's also the fact that some things in this horror movie that were supposed to be scary had me laughing. It's partially the execution of the scenes and partially because some of the things that they choose to have Pennywise do aren't very scary and just come across as hilarious.
The screenplay is also kind of a mixed bag. On the one hand, there's some really good visual storytelling, like with the posters of missing kids going up around town being replaced by new ones, like the town just stopped giving a damn a long time ago. However, there's a lot of plot that could've been explained in visuals, but just aren't for some reason. For example, when Mike (Chosen Jacobs) is explaining how his parents died in the place he now works I was thinking, "Why didn't you just show this when he was there a couple scenes ago? That could've gotten an amazing scare!" That happens a few times throughout the film and whenever it happens it's just irritating.
There's also the problem of the film's themes, in that they're really not that well explored. There's this idea briefly touched on in the film that the people of the town have stopped caring what happens to their children. This is supposed to tie into this theme that "small town USA" has its dark underbelly lying just beneath the surface. I understand the whole scope of it because I've read the book, but if I didn't read it, I can only imagine what I would be thinking if I just saw what the movie told me. There's also the main theme of the film: coming of age. This is cleverly done not just using one way of growing up like in other movies of its type, but in several ways. The children literally leave their parents' houses when they've been told not to by a controlling parent, they overcome their fears throughout the story, Bill tries to come to terms with the fate of his brother. These are all really good ways of exploring this theme, but I feel like they don't get enough screen time or they're poorly executed. The first problem I can understand; this is a huge ensemble cast and not everybody can have an entire movie dedicated to them explaining their backstory and motivations. The second problem, however, I can blame on the screenplay. At the very end of the film, there's a part where they just come out and say what the story arc was supposed to be, even though they were telling it visually pretty well only a few seconds before. Could you really not risk the audience having to use their brains to figure out what was going on?
Technical
The first thing that jumps out at you is how they use color. Right from the beginning the colors are either muted or color corrected grey. It perfectly sets the grim, serious tone the film tries (and sometimes fails) to keep throughout the movie. The only color that's allowed to pop out at the audience is red, which is used to foreshadow an appearance by Pennywise or just remind us of his presence in the story, like he could be anywhere. All the balloons we see in the film are red and every time we see one we know that something scary is just waiting around the corner ready to pounce.
The cinematography is good at building up the scares that are coming. Much like It Follows it uses the slow zoom in of the camera to build up the suspense like a jack in the box, slowly moving in on either the kids of the place where the scare is going to happen, ramping up audience anticipation.
The set design is another great aspect, especially the intentionally scary settings. The sewers they go into look and feel more like caves, with echoing noises, water reflecting light into the faces of our characters and plantlife hanging from the ceiling.
The music is a mixed bag. In a lot of beginning scenes it can be really obnoxious, shoving down your throat what you should be feeling anyway. When it's scary, the soundtrack lets you know you're supposed to be scared. When it's happy, it sounds like music that could be used by a Pure Michigan commercial. I understand that this is meant to create contrast between the moments of darkness and happiness, but there must've been a more subtle way to do that, surely.
The makeup for Pennywise is really good in that he's instantly scary, but bad in that he's instantly scary. I have a hard time believing that anybody this scary wouldn't immediately scare away his prey which he's trying to draw closer to him.
The acting is astonishingly good from the entire cast. The kids, even the one who plays Georgie who can't be more than six or seven years old, all give nuanced, realistic performances. Bill Skarsgård does a great job as Pennywise, a creepy voice and great facial expressions. However, none of them really steal the show like Tim Curry did in the 1990 miniseries. They all do great, but none of them are spectacular.
Summary: It is imperfect, but I liked it. It's basically what I wanted Stranger Things season 2 to be: a frequently sharp script, likable if token characters and enough genuine scares mixed in with the unintentional laughs. It's got enough charm that I can see myself checking this one out again in the future.
Disclaimer: a lot of this will sound very similar to the Nostalgia Critic's review of the film since I have most of the same things to say about it. While I did see the review before I saw the film and this most likely effected my viewing experience, I believe that I have distanced myself enough from that review in order to give my genuine thoughts and feelings on the film.
Story
After his little brother goes missing, Billy (Jaedon Lierberher) begins searching for clues as to what happened to him. During his search, he comes across and makes friends with a group of town misfits and they discover that they've all seen a strange, horrifying vision: an evil clown called Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård). Eventually deducing that Pennywise is responsible for a string of recent child disappearances, they decide to ban together and stop it.
The pacing for the film is really good. It's really quickly paced, keeping you intrigued in the slower moments and terrified/laughing in the scary moments so you're never bored. But it's not so insecure that it feels like it has to constantly go fast. With many horror movies, they feel the need to get right into scaring you, pacing be damned. And while they do have one really big scare at the beginning, even that is pretty well paced. We get to see how Billy truly cared about his brother, it takes its time building up to the scare and even the scare itself is slow paced in a way. It has enough faith in its audience that it can spend time fleshing out the characters and the town they live in without the audience getting bored.
That part is probably helped by the fact that the kid characters are all really enjoyable. They're funny underdogs, which immediately helps us form a connection with them. They're bullied which, while it's a huge outdated cliche, I'm willing to give a pass to since the book was one of the first to implement these tropes. Speaking of which, that's pretty much what all of the kids are: tropes. Outside of a few of the kids, I couldn't even tell you their names. I could name them by their trope roles (leader, fat kid, token girl, black kid, Jewish kid), but that's literally it. However, again, they're still pretty enjoyable, which definitely helps you to forget about their lack of identity.
It didn't help distract me, however, from the fact that the film is tonally all over the place. In some scenes, it manages to balance tone well, as I feel a lot of other Stephen King movies have been able to do, shifting smoothly from drama to humor and then horror without much of a whiplash. However, when it's bad, it's really bad. There are just so many times when the tone you think they should be going for is completely at odds with what they're actually doing. In fact, half the time I didn't know what they were trying to do. For example, there's a scene where the kids are cleaning up a bathroom full of blood. That's all fine and good, except they're doing it while a peppy 80s song is playing. Why? How does that match with anything that's going on in the scene or the one that came before it with the creepy pedo dad? It makes no sense and all it did was confuse me. There's also the fact that some things in this horror movie that were supposed to be scary had me laughing. It's partially the execution of the scenes and partially because some of the things that they choose to have Pennywise do aren't very scary and just come across as hilarious.
The screenplay is also kind of a mixed bag. On the one hand, there's some really good visual storytelling, like with the posters of missing kids going up around town being replaced by new ones, like the town just stopped giving a damn a long time ago. However, there's a lot of plot that could've been explained in visuals, but just aren't for some reason. For example, when Mike (Chosen Jacobs) is explaining how his parents died in the place he now works I was thinking, "Why didn't you just show this when he was there a couple scenes ago? That could've gotten an amazing scare!" That happens a few times throughout the film and whenever it happens it's just irritating.
There's also the problem of the film's themes, in that they're really not that well explored. There's this idea briefly touched on in the film that the people of the town have stopped caring what happens to their children. This is supposed to tie into this theme that "small town USA" has its dark underbelly lying just beneath the surface. I understand the whole scope of it because I've read the book, but if I didn't read it, I can only imagine what I would be thinking if I just saw what the movie told me. There's also the main theme of the film: coming of age. This is cleverly done not just using one way of growing up like in other movies of its type, but in several ways. The children literally leave their parents' houses when they've been told not to by a controlling parent, they overcome their fears throughout the story, Bill tries to come to terms with the fate of his brother. These are all really good ways of exploring this theme, but I feel like they don't get enough screen time or they're poorly executed. The first problem I can understand; this is a huge ensemble cast and not everybody can have an entire movie dedicated to them explaining their backstory and motivations. The second problem, however, I can blame on the screenplay. At the very end of the film, there's a part where they just come out and say what the story arc was supposed to be, even though they were telling it visually pretty well only a few seconds before. Could you really not risk the audience having to use their brains to figure out what was going on?
Technical
The first thing that jumps out at you is how they use color. Right from the beginning the colors are either muted or color corrected grey. It perfectly sets the grim, serious tone the film tries (and sometimes fails) to keep throughout the movie. The only color that's allowed to pop out at the audience is red, which is used to foreshadow an appearance by Pennywise or just remind us of his presence in the story, like he could be anywhere. All the balloons we see in the film are red and every time we see one we know that something scary is just waiting around the corner ready to pounce.
The cinematography is good at building up the scares that are coming. Much like It Follows it uses the slow zoom in of the camera to build up the suspense like a jack in the box, slowly moving in on either the kids of the place where the scare is going to happen, ramping up audience anticipation.
The set design is another great aspect, especially the intentionally scary settings. The sewers they go into look and feel more like caves, with echoing noises, water reflecting light into the faces of our characters and plantlife hanging from the ceiling.
The music is a mixed bag. In a lot of beginning scenes it can be really obnoxious, shoving down your throat what you should be feeling anyway. When it's scary, the soundtrack lets you know you're supposed to be scared. When it's happy, it sounds like music that could be used by a Pure Michigan commercial. I understand that this is meant to create contrast between the moments of darkness and happiness, but there must've been a more subtle way to do that, surely.
The makeup for Pennywise is really good in that he's instantly scary, but bad in that he's instantly scary. I have a hard time believing that anybody this scary wouldn't immediately scare away his prey which he's trying to draw closer to him.
The acting is astonishingly good from the entire cast. The kids, even the one who plays Georgie who can't be more than six or seven years old, all give nuanced, realistic performances. Bill Skarsgård does a great job as Pennywise, a creepy voice and great facial expressions. However, none of them really steal the show like Tim Curry did in the 1990 miniseries. They all do great, but none of them are spectacular.
Summary: It is imperfect, but I liked it. It's basically what I wanted Stranger Things season 2 to be: a frequently sharp script, likable if token characters and enough genuine scares mixed in with the unintentional laughs. It's got enough charm that I can see myself checking this one out again in the future.
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