IT

So if you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that I have been looking forward to this movie for quite a while. It wasn't really on my radar until earlier this year when the trailers came out. If IT didn't do anything right, which they definitely did, one thing they did completely right was trailers. This movie could have been absolute garbage but the trailers were spot on and were the only reason I became so interested in IT and honestly a lot of Stephen King stories recently. I mean a part of it I contribute to Stranger Things, which I will talk about later, but the trailer gave the vibe that they wanted to capitalize on everyone who liked Stranger Things and man did they capitalize on that in the film.

IT is the story of a group of kids who live in Maine. The town Derry is a pretty messed up town where children go missing and there is definitely something wrong. The group of kids are called The Losers Club. The name is pretty self explanatory, they're all kids who are bullied and are not the popular kids. They all come together and you have a bit of a Stand By Me group that forms. The team is made up of Bill Denbrough (played by Jaden Lieberher), Ritchie Tozier (played by Finn Wolfhard) Ben Hanscom (played by Jeremy Ray Taylor) Eddie Kasprak (played by Jack Dylan Grazer), Beverly Marsh (played by Sophia Lillis), Stanley Uris (played by Wyatt Oleff) and Mike Hanlon (played by Chose Jacobs).

And yeah, these kids were picked spectacularly to play each character. I know every person who has reviewed this movie has raved about the kids but they're not wrong. Even though the focus is definitely on some of them more than others, I thought that even if they didn't have a lot of screen time, these kids were a lot of fun and utilized really well.

Now, everyone is going to point towards Stranger Things with this film. I already have. I mean they got Finn Wolfhard, the star of Stranger Things to play a quintessential role. And yeah, they definitely watched Stranger Things and were like, "You know how we used IT and other Stephen King stories to inspire Stranger Things, well how about we use Stranger Things to inspire IT." What I do like is that while everyone is going to point towards Stranger Things, the truth is that this story is actually pretty close to the book. I really liked the great blend of the grittiness of the story, the atmosphere of Stranger Things, and it even took some elements from the Tim Curry miniseries, especially the use of Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

Bill Skarsgard plays Pennywise or "It" and he does a really, really good job at it. That doesn't necessarily mean that he was terrifying but he was good.

It is kind of a hard thing to explain and the explanation delves into spoiler territory so I'll just say he uses these kid's fear to haunt them. And what I like about this Pennywise as opposed to Tim Curry's was that this one actually felt like he would kill you if he got his hands on you.

Tim Curry had a lot of moments where he would just appear and kind of mess with the kids. He wouldn't do anything, he would just act like Tim Curry and we were supposed to be afraid. If Pennywise from this film got close, he would bite your head off or straight up murder you. And Skarsgard does a really good job. It's not gonna be Curry, nobody can do Curry. But I think it is done better actually.

The other interesting aspect of Pennywise is the fact that he is able to change shape. Now I've heard some criticism that the CGI for his change is not done incredibly well and while I do disagree, I do think that it probably made Pennywise a little less scary when you were thinking about how fake the CGI looked. For me CGI is often not about that looks real as opposed to that looks creative and the way they used CGI in Pennywise was actually really creative and used well in my opinion.

But here's the thing... Pennywise wasn't that scary.

I think the ideas of clowns are scarier than scary clowns. Lets be real, if you watch Tim Curry's IT now it's just funny. Bill Skarsgard's IT is an interesting character and he is threatening, however he's more threatening the less you see of him. Once he's on screen, especially when he has dialogue, he really starts to lose the scary factor of him. Instead he's just weird and sometimes even comical.

Again, he's not bad and he's scarier than Tim Curry's Pennywise was. But if you're thinking he's going to be some kind of horror icon, I'm not a huge horror fan and I know that's just not true.

And that kind of goes into the biggest issue I had with the film. It had a little bit of trouble totally defining what it was as a story. Was it a horror film? Well if it was there have been better. It set up an environment and there were definitely jump scares but all those things could have been done better. Was it trying to be Stranger Things? Well if it was there have been better. As many good moments of character development there were also a lot of scenes that only existed to scare you and not to really contribute at all. Was it trying to be a true to form Stephen King adaptation? I would probably say this is the closest thing but even though I haven't finished the book I know it left a lot of things out and for good reason.

IT by nature is a weird story. It's basically Stand By Me if there was a killer clown thrown in there. It's also a difficult movie to because there is so much in it happening and again, a lot of it is pretty weird. While it probably wanted to stick close to the novel, there is no way it could because that's not going to be profitable for the audience (or audiences) they're going for.

I think this movie made the understandable mistake that those who loved Stranger Things and those who love horror films are the same people. While there are some overlap, I don't think most people went into Stranger Things hoping for more scares and I don't think the horror fans went into IT looking for more Stranger Things vibes.

Luckily I think the movie capitalized on both enough that people, $117 Million to be precise, like the combination of the two and can find enjoyment in both sides of what they're trying to pull off here. I am one of those people.

I think while this movie was a little confused on what it wanted to be, it definitely had good characters, it had emotional moments, it had funny moments.

I am not a horror movie fan.

This movie actually gave me a little bit of anxiety minutes before I started to watch it because I knew there were jumpscares in the film and I don't like jump scares. I like scary stories but I don't like the only thing to be scared of is the loud noise or the quick camera cut. I prefer environments and ambiance rather than being surprised.

And that's what I hope they focus on more in the second film.

From what I know of the book and what I've seen in the miniseries, I know that if they do a sequel for this movie it will be when the kids are all grown up. There have been rumors so far and the ending does set up for that possibility. However, I think they are going to have to do a lot of work to get that film done correctly. I might do a spoilers review of this film where I can talk about specific moments that I liked, scenes that I thought were silly, and predictions for the next film.

But overall, I'm sure this review was a little bit confusing. The overall is that I liked this film. I will more than likely be buying this on digital. I would like to revisit this film sometime soon to get a true picture of what I liked, what I disliked and if this is going to go down as one of my favorite films of the year or if its just a good film.

But what did you think? Did you like it? Are you a hardcore horror fan? Did it live up to expectations? Comment and Discuss Below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Hopefully you understand how terrifying Mike Meyer's Cat in the Hat is, now put him in the context of IT. This almost would have made a more terrifying movie. Enjoy!