This adaptation of Stephen King’s IT breaks off the half of the story about the characters originally facing the monster as children. It also moves the story forward in time with the kids living in the 80s. It very much feels like the Stranger Things version of this story. (I mean it literally has Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things in it as Richie)
The thing about this movie is that it works much better as a kids adventure story than as a horror film. The movie doesn’t really build an uncomfortable atmosphere as much as it presents an aggressively unpleasant world. Pretty much all the adults are awful as are all the other kids who aren’t our main group.
The appearances of Pennywise aren’t surprising, they aggressive and pretty consistent throughout. He’s in their lives constantly, and the worst human characters feels like they’ve gotten where they are by being pushed by him. There’s no mystery to the horror, it’s just there to torture the characters.
So I don’t think this movie is scary at all. And the horror elements don’t make any real connection with me. But as a thing that the characters have to face and overcome I do think they work.
Though it’s not scary I do think it’s super important that this movie has teeth as an R rated film. There’s a lot of blood, violence, profanity and incredibly dark material that I think the movie fails without.
I went in with pretty low expectations and I was pleasantly surprised. I only ended up caring and being super amused that it starred the kid from The Book of Henry at the very beginning. That I was just watching him as his character pretty quickly is a huge win for that actor and the movie. This is a solid adaptation of this story. It’s not amazing, or particularly affecting, but it’s good. I enjoyed watching it.
