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cjlasky7This is going to sound weird....
Went to see IT on Friday morning, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable cinematic experience. Beautifully shot, crisply written, superb performances--I recommend it to anyone looking for quality pulp movie making.
Here's the weird part...
The movie didn't scare me at all. But I really liked it anyway.
(Spoilers ahead....)
I guess at this point in time, Pennywise doesn't have any mystery for me. I never read the novel, but I was a big fan of the 1990 miniseries, with Tim Curry ruining "clown" as a profession for the next 200 years. We know that at key points in the movie, Pennywise (or one of ITs other forms) is going to jump out of the shadows and scare the bejesus out of the kids. We also know that none of the heroes will die, because we've got the sequel lined up for September 2019, and they're all coming back.
(Except for Georgie, of course. This version shows Georgie's gruesome demise, ripped arm and everything. But even here, you know it's going to happen; you aren't scared-- you just cringe, waiting for the inevitable.)
The movie is much more successful establishing setting and mood. The town of Derry, Maine has been under this creature's oppressive thumb since the town's founding, centuries before. The atmosphere is metaphorically poisoned, and we feel how that poison has seeped into the very structure of the town.
The most effective horror in the movie are the scenes of everyday brutality and abuse in the lives of our adolescent heroes: the creepiness of Bev's father, constantly asking if she's still his "little girl"; Eddie's mother, almost literally smothering him to death with her toxic love; and the roving gang of psychotic school bullies, a veritable junior SS, terrorizing the kids on a daily basis.
But underneath all that is a basic truth that's even more ghastly. Even though Pennywise has ravaged the town every 27 years, the town has somehow managed to... live with it. The posters go up, there's a futile search, the children are mourned, but over time, the names blur together and life goes on as it was. (How very... Sunnydale.)
It's this core horror--the fear that their existence is ultimately meaningless--that spurs our heroes to action against the oppression of the town, the bullies, their parents, and then Pennywise himself.
The result is not so much a great horror movie, but a great character study--kind of like "Stand By Me", but with an evil, shape-shifting clown.
Looking forward to Chapter Two.
Went to see IT on Friday morning, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable cinematic experience. Beautifully shot, crisply written, superb performances--I recommend it to anyone looking for quality pulp movie making.
Here's the weird part...
The movie didn't scare me at all. But I really liked it anyway.
(Spoilers ahead....)
I guess at this point in time, Pennywise doesn't have any mystery for me. I never read the novel, but I was a big fan of the 1990 miniseries, with Tim Curry ruining "clown" as a profession for the next 200 years. We know that at key points in the movie, Pennywise (or one of ITs other forms) is going to jump out of the shadows and scare the bejesus out of the kids. We also know that none of the heroes will die, because we've got the sequel lined up for September 2019, and they're all coming back.
(Except for Georgie, of course. This version shows Georgie's gruesome demise, ripped arm and everything. But even here, you know it's going to happen; you aren't scared-- you just cringe, waiting for the inevitable.)
The movie is much more successful establishing setting and mood. The town of Derry, Maine has been under this creature's oppressive thumb since the town's founding, centuries before. The atmosphere is metaphorically poisoned, and we feel how that poison has seeped into the very structure of the town.
The most effective horror in the movie are the scenes of everyday brutality and abuse in the lives of our adolescent heroes: the creepiness of Bev's father, constantly asking if she's still his "little girl"; Eddie's mother, almost literally smothering him to death with her toxic love; and the roving gang of psychotic school bullies, a veritable junior SS, terrorizing the kids on a daily basis.
But underneath all that is a basic truth that's even more ghastly. Even though Pennywise has ravaged the town every 27 years, the town has somehow managed to... live with it. The posters go up, there's a futile search, the children are mourned, but over time, the names blur together and life goes on as it was. (How very... Sunnydale.)
It's this core horror--the fear that their existence is ultimately meaningless--that spurs our heroes to action against the oppression of the town, the bullies, their parents, and then Pennywise himself.
The result is not so much a great horror movie, but a great character study--kind of like "Stand By Me", but with an evil, shape-shifting clown.
Looking forward to Chapter Two.
