Fear. It is one of the greatest survival mechanisms any creature can have. The ability to recognise when something is dangerous and get yourself away from it is what has helped humanity achieve its foothold at the top of the food chain. There are some things that are objectively scary, but what most people will associate with fear are personal phobias. Personally, I’m terrified of spiders. They’ve got far too many legs, the way they move, and the size they can grow to are enough to totally petrify me. The only way to overcome a fear is to not give it power over your life, to recognise that it’s not actually scary, but what if your fear was quite literally trying to kill you? How can you possibly overcome a fear when it always knows where you are and has the ability to ensnare you in its trap?
It’s the summer of 1989 and it’s been just over half a year since six-year-old Georgie Denbrough (Jackson Robert Scott) disappeared after playing outside his home in Derry, Maine. His older brother Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) still hasn’t given up hope in finding him alive, despite his parents having accepted that Georgie will never be coming home. Bill’s best friends Stanley Uris (Wyatt Oleff), Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard), and Eddie Kaspbrack (Jack Dylan Grazer) have all agreed to help him search the nearby barrens for any signs of Georgie over the summer. But Georgie isn’t the only child to have disappeared this year, with one of their classmates even having disappeared in the recent weeks. Meanwhile new kid Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor), unpopular girl Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis), and the home-schooled Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs) are tormented by horrific visions of their greatest fears. Brought together by a local bully, the seven teens begin to see visions of an evil clown who calls himself Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard). With Ben making connections between the missing kids and murders that occur every twenty-seven years, the kids begin to suspect that their visions, and Pennywise, are more real than they want to admit, and Bill suspects that wherever IT lives is likely where he will find answers about Georgie.
It’s the summer of 1989 and it’s been just over half a year since six-year-old Georgie Denbrough (Jackson Robert Scott) disappeared after playing outside his home in Derry, Maine. His older brother Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) still hasn’t given up hope in finding him alive, despite his parents having accepted that Georgie will never be coming home. Bill’s best friends Stanley Uris (Wyatt Oleff), Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard), and Eddie Kaspbrack (Jack Dylan Grazer) have all agreed to help him search the nearby barrens for any signs of Georgie over the summer. But Georgie isn’t the only child to have disappeared this year, with one of their classmates even having disappeared in the recent weeks. Meanwhile new kid Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor), unpopular girl Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis), and the home-schooled Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs) are tormented by horrific visions of their greatest fears. Brought together by a local bully, the seven teens begin to see visions of an evil clown who calls himself Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard). With Ben making connections between the missing kids and murders that occur every twenty-seven years, the kids begin to suspect that their visions, and Pennywise, are more real than they want to admit, and Bill suspects that wherever IT lives is likely where he will find answers about Georgie.
Based on the frankly massive novel by Stephen King (my copy weighs in at just shy of 1300 pages), IT chronicles half of the book focusing on the childhood years of our main characters. Unlike the novel, which spans twenty-seven years and is regularly jumping backwards and forwards along its timeline, the film chooses to tell the events chronologically. It’s quite a significant shake up from the book in that regard, and as a result a lot of what happens in this film and the significance of some events aren’t really given the level of impact they are in the book. However, that doesn’t mean that IT, the film, is a bad adaptation or bad film, in fact it’s one of my favourite films of 2017.
Whilst at its core IT is a horror film, it really presents itself as a coming-of-age story and a meditation on what it actually means to be scared of something, and how to overcome that fear. For fans of the book this gives them even more to enjoy as the bulk of the character development happens naturally rather than in the clearly signposted ways it does in the book. Plus, the time period is given a re-jig with the Losers Club now growing up in the late eighties as opposed to the late fifties in the book, this allows for marginally different character development as they deal with different social issues and have considerably more freedom to behave as young adults.
The story is told mostly through the eyes of Bill, which thanks to the disappearance of his little brother in the opening minutes of the film gives us an emotional connection to his story and motives. Lieberher delivers an incredible performance as the stuttering, unsure, but ultimately brave leader of the Losers Club. Being one of his first leading roles, Lieberher does a tremendous job of keeping us emotionally invested with such an honest and believable performance, especially in a film that deals with such complex issues surrounding child abuse as IT does frequently bring up.
But the star of the Losers Club is definitely Lillis’ Beverly. Being the only girl of the group there is a lot of focus on her throughout the film as she always provides a different, more rational, and more mature perspective. Lillis herself performs with the grace and wisdom of someone twice her age, and whilst the other members of the Losers Club certainly aren’t bad by any stretch of the meaning, Lillis outperforms them in almost every single scene.
It’s also impossible not to talk about the excellent chemistry between Wolfhard & Grazer as Richie and Eddie respectively. The two have excellent comedic timing and as a pairing make any scene a riot. I’m also glad that Wolfhard wasn’t thrust too hard into the spotlight, being the biggest name of all the child actors thanks to his major role in Netflix’s Stranger Things, and that Richie is a significantly different character to the one he plays in that show allowing us to see a wider range of his abilities.
Whilst Lillis may be the star of the Losers Club, the most unforgettable performance of the entire film will undoubtably be Skarsgard’s Pennywise. Skarsgard had big shoes to fill (because they’re clown shoes…funny right?) with Tim Curry’s stellar performance as Pennywise in the 1990’s TV Miniseries of IT being as well remembered as it is. Rather than replicate that performance, Skarsgard tackles it from a different angle with a much more softly spoken Pennywise that relies considerably more on sinister facial expressions and a frankly incredible physical performance. Skarsgard is totally captivating in every scene he is in, and whether you’re scared of clowns or not you’ll certainly be waking up in the middle of the night having had bad dreams starring Skarsgard’s murderous clown.
Whilst at its core IT is a horror film, it really presents itself as a coming-of-age story and a meditation on what it actually means to be scared of something, and how to overcome that fear. For fans of the book this gives them even more to enjoy as the bulk of the character development happens naturally rather than in the clearly signposted ways it does in the book. Plus, the time period is given a re-jig with the Losers Club now growing up in the late eighties as opposed to the late fifties in the book, this allows for marginally different character development as they deal with different social issues and have considerably more freedom to behave as young adults.
The story is told mostly through the eyes of Bill, which thanks to the disappearance of his little brother in the opening minutes of the film gives us an emotional connection to his story and motives. Lieberher delivers an incredible performance as the stuttering, unsure, but ultimately brave leader of the Losers Club. Being one of his first leading roles, Lieberher does a tremendous job of keeping us emotionally invested with such an honest and believable performance, especially in a film that deals with such complex issues surrounding child abuse as IT does frequently bring up.
But the star of the Losers Club is definitely Lillis’ Beverly. Being the only girl of the group there is a lot of focus on her throughout the film as she always provides a different, more rational, and more mature perspective. Lillis herself performs with the grace and wisdom of someone twice her age, and whilst the other members of the Losers Club certainly aren’t bad by any stretch of the meaning, Lillis outperforms them in almost every single scene.
It’s also impossible not to talk about the excellent chemistry between Wolfhard & Grazer as Richie and Eddie respectively. The two have excellent comedic timing and as a pairing make any scene a riot. I’m also glad that Wolfhard wasn’t thrust too hard into the spotlight, being the biggest name of all the child actors thanks to his major role in Netflix’s Stranger Things, and that Richie is a significantly different character to the one he plays in that show allowing us to see a wider range of his abilities.
Whilst Lillis may be the star of the Losers Club, the most unforgettable performance of the entire film will undoubtably be Skarsgard’s Pennywise. Skarsgard had big shoes to fill (because they’re clown shoes…funny right?) with Tim Curry’s stellar performance as Pennywise in the 1990’s TV Miniseries of IT being as well remembered as it is. Rather than replicate that performance, Skarsgard tackles it from a different angle with a much more softly spoken Pennywise that relies considerably more on sinister facial expressions and a frankly incredible physical performance. Skarsgard is totally captivating in every scene he is in, and whether you’re scared of clowns or not you’ll certainly be waking up in the middle of the night having had bad dreams starring Skarsgard’s murderous clown.
The biggest negative I can give the film is that, because it chooses to tell the story very differently to the book, almost nothing is explained in this film and the ending can seem inconclusive. This is only half the story after all, so the inconclusiveness is part and parcel with this adaptation, but especially because you don’t get any sort of idea as to what IT is, why it goes on a killing spree every twenty-seven years, and why the form IT chooses to present itself as most often is as Pennywise the clown.
The film can occasionally feel like a string of jump scare sequences put together with no real purpose behind them. They’re really great jump scares to be fair, as someone who feels those types of scares are usually very poorly done, IT manages to pull them off every few minutes with a generally high bar of quality. But as a positive note to the excessive jump scares, it’s usually difficult to sustain horror for a long film which is why horror’s usually fall within the ninety-minute range, but IT manages to sustain extremely high levels of fear and anxiety for nearly two and a half hours. It can be a draining experience as a result, but the focus being placed on the coming-of-age tale makes the time fly by and you’ll definitely want to watch it again.
IT is an excellent horror film that will appeal to people who love the genre, and even people who don’t particularly like horror. Because the focus is more on the Losers Club and their journey of growing up the horror tends to take a backseat despite the jump scares being as prevalent as they are. But when the scares do come, IT does it better than any horror film this decade. IT amounts to just half the story, with the Losers Club returning as adults in the sequel to finish their tale of terror. IT is not only one of the best horror films of the decade but it’s without a doubt of the best films of 2017 and I would recommend it to anyone with a fleeting interest in its story, but if you’re scared of clowns you may not want to watch this alone.
The film can occasionally feel like a string of jump scare sequences put together with no real purpose behind them. They’re really great jump scares to be fair, as someone who feels those types of scares are usually very poorly done, IT manages to pull them off every few minutes with a generally high bar of quality. But as a positive note to the excessive jump scares, it’s usually difficult to sustain horror for a long film which is why horror’s usually fall within the ninety-minute range, but IT manages to sustain extremely high levels of fear and anxiety for nearly two and a half hours. It can be a draining experience as a result, but the focus being placed on the coming-of-age tale makes the time fly by and you’ll definitely want to watch it again.
IT is an excellent horror film that will appeal to people who love the genre, and even people who don’t particularly like horror. Because the focus is more on the Losers Club and their journey of growing up the horror tends to take a backseat despite the jump scares being as prevalent as they are. But when the scares do come, IT does it better than any horror film this decade. IT amounts to just half the story, with the Losers Club returning as adults in the sequel to finish their tale of terror. IT is not only one of the best horror films of the decade but it’s without a doubt of the best films of 2017 and I would recommend it to anyone with a fleeting interest in its story, but if you’re scared of clowns you may not want to watch this alone.