It Chapter Two (2019)

“You've all grown up..."

This is a long film, in many ways well-structured, good with character, well cast, with excellent effects and a witty script. There are plenty of effective scares and Bill Skarsgard is still a superb villain. This is a very good film. But it’s not quite up there with the first chapter.

Why? Well, I’ll admit it gets the main things right in spending time on the characters and the demons they carry. Pennywise always was a metaphor for abuse- sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse and (especially) gaslighting. This subtext is handled exactly right here, hence things like our glimpse of the horribly abusive relationship with which the adult Beverley starts the film. Henry Bowers, while bad, is bad because of the abuse he's suffered. And Bill's guilt over little Georgie always was exacerbated by Pennywise's gaslighting. And I like the way this version was careful to emphasise the childhood anxieties we all had, and which can linger into adulthood if we don't face them as the Losers do here. And Beverley may be a textbook example of Smurfette Syndrome, but one can't blame this film adaptation for that.

The visuals, direction, lighting and suspense are superb, as are most of the scares. But there are, it has to be said, one or two which don't quite work, and in some places made us laugh- floppy jiggle tits, I'm looking at you. And, while there are plenty of effectively funny lines, Bill Hader in particular is superb at this side of things, and there's a splendidly metatextual cameo by Stephen King in which he accuses his fictional alter ago Bill of the rubbish endings his own critics keep mentioning, in the end the film is just a little too long and flabby, ad could do with editing down just a little.

None of that detracts from the fact I very much enjoyed this film, however, and the way it was shot was superb. It just didn't quite match the standard of its predecessor.

It (2017)

“Wait, can only virgins see this stuff? Is that why I'm not seeing this shit?”

Well, that was unusual. A modern day horror film that eschews all the usual glossy music video tiresomeness in favour of being genuinely excellent. I’ve never heard of anyone involved with this film but they done good.

It’s instructive to compare this, perhaps, to the 1990 two part telly adaptation; we get the same rough plot, except that the film is only the first half, during the principal characters’ childhoods- updated from the early ‘60s to the late ‘80s, with lots of pop culture goodness including both the Cure and Anthrax in the soundtrack. Like the original, and the novel, we get a bunch of white boys with a token girl (Beverly) and black kid (Mike). Jaeden Lieberher and Sophia Lillis are particularly excellent as the main characters- author substitute Bill who is mourning his little brother and poor Beverly, whose father is a nonce and gets a pleasing comeuppance. This, along with Henry Bowers’ tragic cycle of abuse, means that this film plays up the child abuse theme somewhat, something which is probably wrapped up thematically in the idea of Pennywise as the sum of all childhood fears.

The film excels as drama, with well-developed characters and good acting from some superb child actors. That is the basis of any film reliant on traditional narrative, regardless of genre, but this film
managed to scare me, and horror films don’t, as a rule; I’m far too conscious of that fourth wall. But here, unlike almost all modern horror films, we get a lot of genuine suspense at the centre of done superbly conceived and executed set pieces, and it helps that the direction is excellent. All that, and a solid script, makes for an excellent film.

Even the famously hard-to-please Mrs Llamastrangler is extremely impressed. Highly recommended. Coulrophobes beware, though!