(Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures)
If Stephen King Loves ‘It,’ What’s Not to Love?
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When horror writer Stephen King co-signs a remake of one of his classic books/movies, no other critic has to co-sign the project because it has to be bone-chilling scary.
The film “It” takes horror movie junkies back to the golden age of the genre, the 1970s and 1980s. And in the process it perfectly captures the era of guys wearing high shorts and kids foolishly becoming fans of boy band New Kids on the Block.
In the latest adaptation of “It,” Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher) is a loving brother trying to teach his adoring younger brother Georgie Denbrough how to make a paper ship sail in rain water.
Although Bill teaches Georgie how to use wax to make the ship float on the water, he states that he cannot accompany Georgie outside because he pretends that he is so sick in bed that he is about to die.
Bill wishes Georgie the best and warns him to be safe, but Bill never sees his brother alive again.
After the paper ship, christened the S.S. Georgie, gets away from its pint-sized captain, it is lost down a sewer.
While Georgie is unable to retrieve the S.S. Georgie, he meets a new friend hanging out in the sewer.
A funny clown in the sewer “befriends” Georgie and when he offers Georgie his paper ship back, the clown attacks Georgie severing his arm and kidnapping him, taking his body into the sewer with him.
Georgie’s disappearance in “It,” creates a panic in the town of Derry, Maine.
While Billy refuses to admit that his little brother is dead, the rest of the city including Bill and Georgie’s father realize the inevitable, that Georgie is gone for good.
However, when more and more children in Derry vanish into thin air, Bill has to find out what or who is behind this peculiar phenomenon.
“It” is extremely creepy, spooky and well written.
The film begins in October 1988 and progresses through to its 1989 climax.
Along the way, it perfectly captures what it was like to be a preteen in the late 1980s from the ridicule that New Kids on the Block fans received from their friends to the movies of the day like Michael Keaton’s “Batman” and “Lethal Weapon 2.”
The comedic timing is perfect in “It,” flawlessly capturing the dozens that school kids played on each other back in the day.
The boys jokingly refer to their only female friend Beverly (Sophia Lillis) as Molly Ringwald (“Sixteen Candles”), which also is perfectly 1980s.
Additionally, the sewer scene in “It” with the children suspended in air would be breathtaking if it were not so frightening.
Furthermore, Bill Skarsgård’s performance as the evil clown Pennywise is the creepiest thing on the big screen in awhile.
Bill’s delinquent friends, Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), Richie (Finn Wolfhard), Mike (Chosen Jacobs), Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Stanley (Wyatt Oleff) are all up for the task of performing opposite the brilliant Skarsgård.
Nevertheless, horror films need to end their dependency on clowns and dolls.
Many things are scarier than dolls and clowns, like monthly bills.
King should write his next horror story on the terror that comes every month in the form of bills.
Since he already has a scary clown named Pennywise, he can call his next terror Penniless because there’s nothing scarier than that.
REGAL RATINGS
FOUR CROWNS=EXCELLENT
THREE CROWNS=GOOD
TWO CROWNS=AVERAGE
ONE CROWN=POOR
