It

I must admit to feeling a little bit like an outsider amongst the wave of nostalgia and anticipation that has welcomed the latest adaptation of Stephen King's best-seller It. I have never read the book or seen the much-beloved Tim Curry-led mini-series. In fact, I have pretty much missed ... the whole Stephen King thing... Outside of a few adaptations of his works (including the masterpiece that the author hates, The Shining), he's someone I've always been aware but never engaged with (I hope to change that though). I think it's important to preface the review with that, as I watched It strictly as a film and not as the return of a nostalgic property or as a fan of King.

If you're not aware, It follows a group of young children-border-line-teenagers living in the quiet town of Derry, Maine (as we all know, King loves this state) who are being menaced by the terrifying (?) Pennywise the Clown, who appears every 27 years to feast on the children of the town. When several friends realise they are having similar terrifying visions of the clown, they decide to team up and thwart the demon once and for all. The kids must overcome their own fears in their personal lives and work towards the greater good of saving Derry...

The genius move here was transplanting the 50s setting of the novel into the 1980s, which, by effect, draws upon Stranger Things' popular aesthetic. It's ironic that Stranger Things turned to King's novels for inspiration and now the new King adaptations are looking to that incredibly popular Netflix show. This is something I am genuinely nostalgic about, as I grew up on my grandma's dusty old tapes of the great family films of the 80s - E.T., Flight of the Navigator, Back To The Future and the other great Spielberg productions. From a marketing perspective, the amount of nostalgia It can draw upon to pull in an audience is fairly ingenious and, judging by the film's incredible opening weekend at the box office, it's clearly resonating with audiences.

Nostalgic for It the novel? It the TV series? Or Stephen King in general? Or the 1980s? Or even how the 1980s is represented on film? Or just enjoy a good horror film? It has a lot to offer most audiences. 

And for the most part, It works really, really well. The decision to isolate the 'children' portion of the novel (saving the adult section for part two) is fairly inspired, meaning that the story now has a clear focus, which I imagine (and I've heard) gets a bit lost in the novel. The whole of the ensemble child cast are excellent, with really committed and believable performances from them all.  The films takes the right amount of time to set up their motivations and where their lives are at. The film is clearly committed to getting the audience to engage with them. There is a genuine love and bond with the members of self-titled Losers' Club by the end of the film. Some motivations are stronger than others - Jaeden Lieberher as Bill, the leader of the club, goes on a great personal journey after losing his brother at the start of the film to Pennywise (in the brilliantly staged opening sequence), which is given enough time to breath, while Chosen Jacob's Mike's story gets a little lost in the proceedings. My favourite of the Losers' Club though is probably Ben, an overweight and often bullied little boy who finds new motivation (and feelings) after joining the gang. A real star-making turn here is Sophia Lillis as Bev. While the writing on her is bit broad (clearly King's idea of what a 'cool' girl character looks like in his head), the performance is excellent and manages to overcome some of the slightly cliched aspects of her personality (and some slightly questionable decisions made in the final act - and it doesn't involve that infamous scene from the book, which isn't the film).

While It is a very good film, my major issue with it is that the main villain, Pennywise, just isn't scary to me. Admittedly, I'm pretty desensitised to horror films at this point and I'm sure that Bill Skasgård's high-energy performance will terrify some, it's just more funny to me than scary. Which is a shame because as a performance, Bill Skasgård is great and the film has just the right amount of appearances from him. The costume and make-up are brilliant, with some very subtle CGI extensions to create an ever so-slightly off look to the already disturbing clown. I think the framing and certain aspects of the technical side could have made him scarier, such as keeping him in the shadows or remixing the audio on his dialogue, but the scenes still land dead on. The scenes where Pennywise appears to the children as manifestations of their worst nightmares are uniformly excellent. The absolute best involves a bathroom, hair and lots of blood, mostly because it keeps the horror to a mysterious, primordial mode. The films offers plenty of audience pleasing scares and laughs and keeps up a good pace.

A great performance ... just not scary to me

As a fan of horror and coming-of-age stories, I welcome It with open arms and am delighted that its really connected with audiences. While I feel some things are a bit broad for my taste and it maybe has a few too many plot threads overall, as someone who doesn't have a connection to the world of King, I enjoyed It a lot. The child actors are uniformly excellent and the film just keeps the thrills coming. Fans of the novel will no doubt be in seventh heaven. Part Two can't come soon enough ...