IT (2017)
Review: Chapter One
'IT’ is BACK and out to kill you…of BOREDOM
by Zac Becker
I have just gotten home from my 135 minute engagement with a bad movie. Plain and simple, a bad movie. There are so many things wrong with 'IT' and like the film makers themselves, I have no idea where to start or how to put this together.
If you have ever been a fan of the book or the (now even more stunning) TV mini-series (1990), you are very familiar with the chilling 'SS Georgie' scene. How innocent it is for a young boy to share a hobby with his sick older brother and just how sweet is it to see him running in the rain giggling with his new boat. This is all the while withholding a sense of a creeping evil hinted at in the basement. Here we are introduced to the great showman himself, Pennywise the Dancing Clown. At this moment the book and the series have you, enthralled as an audience member staring pure evil in the eyes of a harmless clown. At this moment 'IT' (2017) lost me.
Remember the good ole days when acting mattered?
Unfortunately Bill Skarsgård's portrayal of our dear villain Pennywise falls undeniably short. His character is confused in look (the make up and hair is just....ugh) and tone, only driven with a purpose of eating children and feeding on fear. I can buy into eating children, I'd negotiate for it in fact. Something I'll touch on in a second. But I cannot, nay, will not, buy the fact that this evil clown feeds on fear when he isn't scary. Not once does Skarsgård's performance bring anything other than disappointment to such a complex character. The film makers make up for his lack of creation by constantly shape shifting him (on the shoulders of too much CGI) into several different characters these children feared. For example, Stan, played by Wyatt Oleff, is walking through a back office of his synagogue only to be frightened by a randomly placed painting of a deformed woman on the wall. A woman much to the resemblance of director Andy Muschiettis' previous horror feature 'Mama' (2013).
Woman from 'IT' ... oh wait no...
This deformed woman is then shoved in your face with a loud screech and resounding bass and that's....well...that's the horror. I guess. I just don't really know anymore. I'm getting ahead of myself. The negotiation must come first.
Eating children. How devilish, how bizarre, how twisted. Only you Mr. King, could give us such a demented evil that it's only purpose would be to seek children to terrorize before devouring them in a gruesome fashion. In the new film, we meet Pennywise and are baffled as his grumbles his words. Is he foreign in the film? Is there something in his throat? Did he want to stray so far from Mr. Curry's electric, engaging, powerhouse of a performance and character design that he just flatlined? No seriously it's as if the guy showed up in costume and make up and spent so long doing his perfect red eyeliner that he forgot entirely to create an approach to this character. But this isn't where I began my negotiating with this movie. No. Not when I realized these film makers have made a terrible mistake with Pennywise, not when the movie had just started and I watched credits of every single person who let this happen fade in and out over the trailer I had watched a million times. No.
My negotiation began when Pennywise chomped into a 5 year olds arm like Kobayashi on the Fourth of July and we watched this armless bleeding child crawl away from an inevitable horrific death in a sewer.
At the 'IT' experience buying into the hype
Ashlin Crawley (Pictured left), Georgie (Middle) Myself (Pictured right)
Negotiation transcript reads as follows "Listen movie gods, if you're up there, I'm sure you're taking a lot of calls right now about this remake of 'IT' so I'll just leave a message. I have made many mistakes before coming into this film, buying into the hype, visiting the rebuilt house on Neibolt Street and even re-watching the mixed reviewed TV mini-series on blu-ray in 1.33:1 ratio. I was, sufficed to say, excited and ready for anything. Then I hit my first red flag, 90% on rotten tomatoes with zero user reviews. The producers didn't buy that number right? (I said to myself) it has to be good it must be! You're telling me this mainstream hype horror film has 90% of reviewers walking out feeling this positive? I mean, even Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson reveres that this installation of 'IT' makes his top ten favorite films of all time. So here I am, sitting at The Chinese Theatre IMAX edition, watching this little boy talk to a confused actor...I mean clown... I'm scared. I'm scared I just wasted $50 on something I should have streamed in 3 months or avoided entirely. But there's bargaining to be done, there's a light of hope. Not dead lights, but hopeful lights. Pennywise brutally eats off this child's arm in the most unnecessary fashion and there is one way to save this film.
GO THERE!
Please movie gods if I haven't asked too much from you this year I'm begging you now, please GO THERE! If this movie is to be terrible and have few scenes with meaning, characters you invest in or any through line whatsoever other than that of source material butchered, please just butcher these children. Shock me. Show me you have the god damn balls. This clown eats children damnit! The TV mini-series could have never ventured down that road! They didn't know the way and even if they did they would have been turned back and told to never return. But you 'IT' (2017), yes, you....you can be our salvation. Show us, the audience, as you have done in the opening 5 minutes, that you are to be feared. You are a force of unpredictability that at any time could sink its teeth and drag out the flesh of anyone in your way. If this film is to be reduced to a movie thats a numbing bore, inject us with the epinephrine that is pure vile. A not-so coincidental anagram of EVIL. The very foundation of this material. My example in the gif above is in reference to the the 2013 remake of 'Evil Dead'. A film that GOES THERE! And in most ways 'IT' (2017) failed were much the same 'Evil Dead' (2013) succeeded. Get rid of the pesky emotional development of characters and time spent creating a story arc full of suspense and intrigue. Lose that ambiguous charm that was Tim Curry's Pennywise and just give us full force brutality. That is the one thing I ask of you Andy Muschietti. That is my final offer with you to be able to enjoy this film, please I beg of you, sincerely, Zac"
Mr. Muschiettis Response To My Offer
So here we are, in a review not yet finished and somewhat sloppily thrown together. Masked by different gifs and pictures and CGI to make you forget what a good review really is. Hopefully this first part of my review of 'IT' (2017) is passed around as a 'GREAT HORROR REVIEW' and makes Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's top ten list all time of favorite reviews. As of now my review is holding a steadfast 90% on rotten tomatoes.
I will come back and finish a more thorough spelling out of where 'IT' (2017) went wrong but for now feel unsatisfied. It might just prepare you for that great new horror movie you're about to see this weekend.
Love,
Zac