IT - Review

IT

New Line Cinema's horror thriller "IT," directed by Andy Muschietti ("Mama"), is based on the hugely popular Stephen King novel of the same name, which has been terrifying readers for decades.

Taking place in the late 1980’s we find seven young outcasts in Derry, Maine, are about to face their worst nightmare -- an ancient, shape-shifting evil that emerges from the sewer every 27 years to prey on the town's children in the form of a Clown. Banding together over the course of one horrifying summer, the friends must overcome their own personal fears to battle the murderous, bloodthirsty clown commonly known as “Pennywise”.

REVIEW: Based on the 88% score on Rotten Tomato I am definitely in the minority who believed this film is a cut above. In fact I found it a cut below, filled with sequences after sequences of scenes that add up to essentially to nothing at all that was ever horrifying much less interesting or compelling to watch for its rather lengthy 2 hours 15 minutes.

Overall this modern adaptation of Kings “IT” felt very stale from beginning to the very end jumping around from each child’s individual personal story without a shred of coherence or clarity of what connects them uniquely to the overall story’s narrative of why so many of the towns children have gone missing over the many year. And if the directing wasn’t sloppy enough to make this film a complete mess, I found the acting of most of the adolescent actors in the film beyond annoying with their endless conversational bantering with each other that never seem to be connected to the very person standing directly in front of them.

Ultimately, “IT” is a story about adolescent fear. But the director desire to squeeze each child’s base fear into the film story made “IT” seem completely rudderless with its cluttered dialog. But more importantly the film lacked the core foundation of what makes most horror films great and that is by simply letting the natural rhythms of tension build up quietly and slowly. “IT” fails miserably in that regard with its lack of discipline and focus.

When the movie was over the audience I was with today actually applauded when the film was over. And while I know they were probably expressing the fact they actually like what they saw, for the sake of my opinion here I am going to assume that some of those people that were clapping felt just like me in that they were very happy the film was over.

1.75 Stars