Director: Andrés Muschietti
Screenplay: Cary Fukunaga, Chase Palmer, Gary Dauberman
Starring: Jaeden Lieberher, Bill Skarsgård, Finn Wolfhard, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Nicholas Hamilton
Cinematography: Chung-hoon Chung
Music: Benjamin Wallfisch
Stephen King's 'It' is one of the ten
defining books of my life. The enjoyment it gave me when I first read it as a
kid, plus on every subsequent re-read was immense. Its blend of coming of age
and horror elements are done with great skill and passion for the themes and
you can feel that from every page of the book. That special feeling when you
read a book and the book starts to behave like your friend or guide to the
unexpected is really one of a kind. It helped also that I lived (and still
live) in the village with the surrounding not very different from the one
described in the book. The woods, the river, the passages underneath the land
surface and gullies and streams at the surface. Me and my friends were going
into the woods, camping, making various stuff with the available material. It
was great. But most importantly, I find King's work universal in terms of
perfect capturing of the process of growing up, experiencing the first traces
of death and rotten world before your eyes.
The first adaptation of 'It' came
in the form of the mini series directed by Tommy Lee Wallace in 1990. I always
held it dear to my heart, although it's evident that mini series have lots of
problems (sloppy direction at the second part and downer ending being the most
obvious ones). Tim Curry was wonderful as Pennywise and the kids were excellent
too, but this story needed film format as much more fitting for its themes.
Enter Andrés Muschietti, the
director of pretty weak horror movie 'Mama'. That was the main reason for my
initial concern for the quality of the movie. But with every new promo material
my expectations grew, and I am really happy to say that I was initially wrong.
Very wrong!
First thing I need to say - the
new kids are amazing - so spontaneous, so natural. Yes, the young cast from the
mini series were very fitting in their roles, but the new ones are so great
that I now cannot imagine anyone else in their parts. I completely believed
them and trusted in their friendship, in front of my eyes were not actors but
Bill, Bev, Stan, Ritchie, Mike, Eddie and Ben, the whole Losers Club. I cheered
at their successes, I feared for them, I wanted them to win. Also, I shed a
tear during a couple of really emotional scenes. 'It' alternates very
successfully between hard hitting, tear inducing scenes (and manages to never
feels cheap or manipulative in a bad way during these scenes) and the scenes of
happiness and pure terror. All the supporting actors, both kids and adults are
inhabiting their characters completely and without pulling back. And Bill
Skarsgård as demonic Pennywise took differenth but very interesting path,
playing the performance of hypnotiser who leads children to their death, with
more creepiness and horror than humour, but still taking enough of both. The
very good script helps actors a lot in that process.
New 'It' is wonderful coming of
age horror-adventure. I am glad to say that Muschietti improved himself a great
deal. He gave space to every character to develop, with all their inner
torments, blending their inner horror with the horror of Derry perfectly. And
that's one of the strenghts of King's book too, he managed to blend the real
life horrors with supernatural horrors perfectly (in 'It', but also even more
in 'Pet Sematary' novel for example) and Muschietti made it work on big screen
very well. The boundaries between the ancient evil lurking inside the brain of
the town and its (older) inhabitants are almost completely blurred in this case
and it serves the themes of the movie perfectly. In 'It', the monster(s) is/are
everywhere, in the sewer, in the family, in the school, the whole town is full
of them and our heroes are realising the true nature of everpresent evil of the
town and its inhabitants and deciding to fight it in all its shapes.
Horror scenes are realised with
great skill. What mini series mostly failed to achieve (especially in the second
part) and Muschietti did very effectively is evoking horror by setting an
ordinary situation that suddenly morphs into its nightmarish version. That's an
old trick but Muschietti made it work perfectly. And since the titular
antagonist feeds on children's fears, there are some very creepy scenes of them
confronting the demons of their tortured minds. Some people complained about
the amount and quality of the jump scares, but I never felt that they are out
of place or wrongly used. These scenes are shown from the point of view of the
main characters, and considering that monster "hypnotises" them in these
moments, creating the space for its attack, these scenes always felt justified
and in place. Also some other horror scenes, especially the ones near the end
showing the psychological and literal battle between It and the kids are
perfectly realised. CGI is smartly used (again especially near the end of the
movie), never overused and it adds to instead of taking out of the final
experience.
Scenography is great (with house
of It being the most impressive) and gives a movie another layer of creepiness
or 80's style adventure look, depending on the situation. Cinematography is
another strenght of the movie. It's done by Chung-hoon Chung, best known as the
director of photography for Chan-wook Park's movies. Many of the horror scenes
are set during the bright day, which is a good thing that returns us to the
70's and 80's, when the great masters of horror filmed many very effective
horror scenes during the day. Also, when it comes to the look of the movie, the
period of the late eighties (1988 and 1989) are excellently reconstructed. The
film also have perfect sense of time and space and plays wisely with all its
visual and verbal elements. Visual elemets are fused with passing time and
verbal parts are used in smaller but effective amounts. We have movie marquees
for 'Batman', fifth part of 'A Nightmare on Elm Street', 'Lethal Weapon 2',
posters for 'Beetlejuice' and 'Gremlins' and a picture of monster car on
Eddie's T-shirt (possible reference to 1983 John Carpenter's movie adapted from
Stephen King's novel). Also at one point Richie says, referring to Bev: "
Who invited Molly Ringwald into the
group?” (one of the funniest lines from the movie),
which is of course a reference to one of the main stars of John Hughes movies
from the same era. Also, the music by various bands is cleverly used (with New
Kids on the Block being very funny and nice touch :) ). Original score by
Benjamin Wallfisch alternates between very creepy and John Williams-like,
adding layers of very effective horror and 80's nostalgia.
One thing that I would have loved
to see more was bigger hints at cosmic origin of It's evil. There are couple of
hints near the end of the movie, but I would like to see more of that, because
it gives It the wider implications and makes its evil more Lovecraftian - that
was another strenght of King's book, making It more dangerous and universal.
Also, as a part of that mythology, the turtle Maturin is referenced couple of
times in the movie, but not much. I would like to see more of that. All that is
very well explained in the 'Ritual of Chüd' scene in the book (which was one of
the scenes initially planned for the movie, but never filmed because of the
budgetary reasons). It would be great to see Ritual of Chüd and other similar
scenes in the second part of the movie, in the form of flashbacks. Also, since
the director's cut on DVD and Blu-Ray will be 15 minues longer, there is a
strong possibillity for including more scenes of It's background (a background
that does not destroy the character, which was often the case in similar
situations, but enriches it). All in all, the goods that this movie delivers
are too big so I don't consider this a big problem (and I am certainly not one
of those "the movie must be faithful to the book" type of people, on
the contrary), only suggesting a thing that can (and probably will be) more
explored.
'It' is an amazing experience. I
watched it with a friend at the cinema. Apart from five or six us twenty- and
thirty-somethings, the cinema was full of kids and teenagers. They obviously
liked the movie a lot (Bev got the biggest applause for her stabbing It in the
head). When the movie was over, one kid stood up and said very loud, so that
everybody can hear him: "This is the best horror movie I ever saw!"
While that's not true in my case, I can certainly understand where he is coming
from. 'It' is one of the best horror movies of the recent years and the success
it enjoys is completely justified by its qualities. Now we are waiting for director's
cut DVD and Blu-Ray (and of course the second part of the movie)!
"They're gazebos mom!
They're bullshit!"
Eddie Kaspbrak
4.5 / 5
