Stephen King’s nearly 1200-pager
from 1986 might be the author’s best work, and his most terrifying. Despite
being fairly iconic for its nightmarish clown antagonist (likely due to Tim
Curry’s performance in the 1990 TV movie, an adaptation which frankly holds up
poorly upon revisitation), It is by no means simple monster fare. Rather, the
evil of the novel is an all-enveloping, inescapable presence that takes many forms, something from
which the characters can’t simply run away. Nor can the reader, for King’s prose
creates a suffocating atmosphere of fear that even putting the book down for a
while hardly alleviates.
The long-gestating big-screen
adaptation takes the same approach. But instead of an ever-constricting air of
pure terror, director Andy Muschietti opts for a more playful kind of scary. The
picture is like a big funhouse (for the older kiddies, mind you), full of creative and colorful frights, with the sinister
clown Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) half-comically playing host to the proceedings like the
Cryptkeeper. It's the Poltergeist-like haunted house horror that takes the audience on a fun, shock-filled ride that satisfies their scare fix, but lets
them go to bed at ease that very night.
The setting is King’s oft-used
fictional town of Derry, Maine. Once every quarter-plus-century, this locale is
besieged by a mysterious entity that snatches up kids. Little explanation is
given besides the fact that it manifests as people’s worst fears, almost always
accompanied by Pennywise. Taking place during the latest coming of “It” in the
late 80s, the film follows a group of pubescent outcasts dubbed “The Losers’
Club” (Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Jack
Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, and Chosen Jacobs) who are haunted by the evil
being.
The screenplay pares down half of
the book (the other half, following the Losers as adults, is in production) into
a two-and-a-quarter hour movie. So, many things are simplified, and whole backstories
and memorable sequences are left out. Yet, it still feels complete, like all
the important stuff is there. Also, in some ways, condensing the material works in the movie’s
favor, necessitating a subtlety that strengthens a couple elements. In particular, the arc of Lillis’ character is improved, her personal horror now more implied and much more disturbing. And surprisingly,
it’s the moments between the horrors where the writing seems strongest. The
relationships between the protagonists feel real, funny and even a little
sweet. These scenes are bolstered by the young cast, who is uniformly excellent, and
gel remarkably well with the scarier parts of the picture.
There admittedly comes a point
where the scares start to diminish, and the picture falls victim to that old adage
about how the more they show the monster, the less scary it gets. One can’t help but wonder if the filmmakers have anything left to frighten with for Part 2. But for now, this first part is a great time. It doesn’t exactly stick in the viewer’s mind
for days after like something truly haunting and terrifying, but damn if they
won’t enjoy themselves while watching it, between their fingers, perhaps.
