It (15.)
Directed by Andres Muschietti.
Starring Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard, Javier Botet, Sophia Lillis, Nicholas Hamilton and Bill Skarsgård. 135 mins.
If Warner Brother are good at anything it is publicising horror films. The Conjuring 2 had a fearsomely effective poster while their marketing for It has helped turn this adaptation of an old Stephen King doorstopper into something of a cultural phenomenon, set to be one of the biggest horror movies of recent times. Its poster – an exclamation mark made up of a yellow coated child victim and a red balloon, with the logo “you'll float too” - is almost indecently chilling. Well, they certainly hooked me in.
Muchchietti's film is a crowd pleasing, well executed adaptation, but maybe just a little anodyne, even nice. Certainly this wuss was able to sit through it without distress or alarm – and so could Mrs Wuss. It reminds of the days when people used to say that Stephen King books didn't make for good films. What soon becomes apparent is that this is not going to tap into the contemporary unease of the whole Creepy Clown craze, but will invite us on a cosy trip back to the 80s. The film on at the local cinema is the first Michael Keaton Batman, but this is a cinematic landscape dominated by early Spielberg.
It is two films in one. Mostly we are engaged with a hoping-to-come-of-age tale in which a group of bullied outsider kids, come together over the summer vacation in the small town of Derry (pronounced Dairy) to stand up to psychotic bullies and their demented parents. Oh, and fight against a shape shifting, child killing thing that often takes the form of clown called Pennywise (Skarsgård.)
So it is like a Stand By Me remake, interrupted at regular intervals by stylish horror set pieces. I liked the kids, and liked the horror bits; but I wasn't ever truly convinced the two really belonged together. The poster is so effective, so squirming unpleasant, because it suggest something that will defile innocence, cross the line. These kids are all having really crappy childhoods being saddled with paedophile fathers, psychotic bullies, stammers, morbid obesity etc, but in the film there is an innocent glow which seems to protect them. Technically, they are going through an horrendous ordeal, but in many ways they are having a wail of a time. And those big horror set pieces that punctuate the tale are like the big showstopping numbers in a musical; impressive and entertaining but when they stop it's like everybody goes back to normal, untouched by the experience.
The It in It is so called because It is undefined, we don't know its parameters. This is clever in as much as it allows author and filmmaker plenty of leeway to create audacious and elaborate scenes for it. But what we do know about It is that Its primary purpose is to kill children: so why doesn't it just get on with it? Sometimes it kills them straight out, first time it meets them. But if it is one of the Loser Gang, it toys with them endlessly; playing with Its food. King included the notion that it feeds on fear as a get out for this but it narks me when the menace in a horror film is more concerned with how it looks then actually being a menace. This happens all the time in horror films: the menace doesn't abide by any rules or logic, it just does what look good and it takes all the fear out of it but it rubs the artifice of the creation in your face.
It is a showboating demon, constantly performing unnecessary keepy uppy tricks to show off just how very very clever It is. But I'd respect It more if It concentrated on the job in hand; because if It isn't going to take this seriously, why should I?
Directed by Andres Muschietti.
Starring Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard, Javier Botet, Sophia Lillis, Nicholas Hamilton and Bill Skarsgård. 135 mins.
If Warner Brother are good at anything it is publicising horror films. The Conjuring 2 had a fearsomely effective poster while their marketing for It has helped turn this adaptation of an old Stephen King doorstopper into something of a cultural phenomenon, set to be one of the biggest horror movies of recent times. Its poster – an exclamation mark made up of a yellow coated child victim and a red balloon, with the logo “you'll float too” - is almost indecently chilling. Well, they certainly hooked me in.
Muchchietti's film is a crowd pleasing, well executed adaptation, but maybe just a little anodyne, even nice. Certainly this wuss was able to sit through it without distress or alarm – and so could Mrs Wuss. It reminds of the days when people used to say that Stephen King books didn't make for good films. What soon becomes apparent is that this is not going to tap into the contemporary unease of the whole Creepy Clown craze, but will invite us on a cosy trip back to the 80s. The film on at the local cinema is the first Michael Keaton Batman, but this is a cinematic landscape dominated by early Spielberg.
It is two films in one. Mostly we are engaged with a hoping-to-come-of-age tale in which a group of bullied outsider kids, come together over the summer vacation in the small town of Derry (pronounced Dairy) to stand up to psychotic bullies and their demented parents. Oh, and fight against a shape shifting, child killing thing that often takes the form of clown called Pennywise (Skarsgård.)
So it is like a Stand By Me remake, interrupted at regular intervals by stylish horror set pieces. I liked the kids, and liked the horror bits; but I wasn't ever truly convinced the two really belonged together. The poster is so effective, so squirming unpleasant, because it suggest something that will defile innocence, cross the line. These kids are all having really crappy childhoods being saddled with paedophile fathers, psychotic bullies, stammers, morbid obesity etc, but in the film there is an innocent glow which seems to protect them. Technically, they are going through an horrendous ordeal, but in many ways they are having a wail of a time. And those big horror set pieces that punctuate the tale are like the big showstopping numbers in a musical; impressive and entertaining but when they stop it's like everybody goes back to normal, untouched by the experience.
The It in It is so called because It is undefined, we don't know its parameters. This is clever in as much as it allows author and filmmaker plenty of leeway to create audacious and elaborate scenes for it. But what we do know about It is that Its primary purpose is to kill children: so why doesn't it just get on with it? Sometimes it kills them straight out, first time it meets them. But if it is one of the Loser Gang, it toys with them endlessly; playing with Its food. King included the notion that it feeds on fear as a get out for this but it narks me when the menace in a horror film is more concerned with how it looks then actually being a menace. This happens all the time in horror films: the menace doesn't abide by any rules or logic, it just does what look good and it takes all the fear out of it but it rubs the artifice of the creation in your face.
It is a showboating demon, constantly performing unnecessary keepy uppy tricks to show off just how very very clever It is. But I'd respect It more if It concentrated on the job in hand; because if It isn't going to take this seriously, why should I?
