It (2017)

By Saša Avramović

Alternative titles: It: Chapter One a.k.a. It: Part 1 - The Losers' Club

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 is 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 one of a kind. It helped also that I lived (and still live) in a village with surroundings 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. I and my friends were camping in the woods, making wood tents out of pine trees and other available materials. It was great. But most importantly, when it comes to themes, I find King's work universal in terms of perfectly capturing the growing-up process, while experiencing the first traces of death and the rotten world before your eyes.

The first adaptation of 'It' came in the form of a 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 in 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 a film format as much more fitting for its themes.

Enter Andrés Muschietti, the director of the pretty weak horror movie 'Mama'. That was the main reason for my initial concern about 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 was 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, and 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 feel cheap or manipulative in a bad way during these scenes) and 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 a different but very interesting path, playing the performance of a hypnotizer who leads children to their death, with more creepiness and horror than humor, but still taking enough of both. The very good script helps the actors a lot in that process.

New 'It' is a 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, which is one of the main strengths of King's book too. King is great at blending real-life horrors with supernatural horrors (in 'It', but also even more in 'Pet Sematary' novel for example) and Muschietti made it work on the 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 brilliantly fits the themes of the movie. 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 slowly realizing the true nature of the everpresent evil of the town and its inhabitants and deciding to fight It in all its shapes. Real life and supernatural, personal and collective, they blur together in the waking nightmare that paralyzes the whole town, alternating between the moments of terror seen and felt only by kids (the adults are already part of It) and the real-life terror of dysfunctional families, child abuse and the constant neglecting by the adults - by those who are meant to care for and protect the children in the first place ("Then, one day, you realize that's not true.").

Horror scenes are realized with great skill. What the 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 of course 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 the 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 the monster "hypnotizes" 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 realized. 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.

 The scenography is extremely well done (with the house of It being the most impressive) and creates another layer of creepiness or 80's style adventure look, depending on the situation. Cinematography is another strength 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 smart move that returns us to the golden 70s and 80s when the great masters of horror filmed some very effective horror scenes during the bright day. Also, when it comes to the look of the movie, the period of the late eighties (1988 and 1989) is perfectly reconstructed. The film also has a perfect sense of time and space and plays wisely with all its visual and verbal elements. Visual elements are fused with passing time and verbal parts are used in smaller but effective amounts. We have movie marquees for 'Batman', the fifth part of 'A Nightmare on Elm Street, 'Lethal Weapon 2', posters for 'Beetlejuice' and 'Gremlins' and a picture of a monster car on Eddie's T-shirt (possible reference to 1983 John Carpenter's movie 'Christine', 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 :) ). The original score by Benjamin Wallfisch alternates between very creepy and John Williams-like, adding layers of very effective horror and 80's nostalgia.

I would have loved it if the movie contained bigger hints at the origins of Its evil, rooted in Lovecraftian cosmic horror. There are a couple of hints near the end of the movie, but I would have loved to see more of that, because it gives It the wider implications and makes its evil more Lovecraftian - that was another strength of King's book, making It part of the cosmic terror existing beyond any superficial and banal, being truly dangerous and universal. Also, as a part of that mythology, the turtle Maturin is referenced a couple of times in the movie, but not much. I would have liked 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 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 minutes longer, there is a strong possibility of including more scenes of Its 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 of us twenty- and thirty-somethings, the cinema was full of kids and teenagers. They 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've ever seen!" 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 recent years and the success it enjoys is completely justified by its qualities.
 

"They're gazebos, mom! They're bullshit!"
Eddie Kaspbrak

4.5 / 5