IT (2017) Review

IT (2017) Review
J.R

I just want to start off this one with a little PSA: The opening logos are the universal signal that the movie has started and that you should stop talking. Thanks.

It's hard to even know where to begin. At the time of writing this, IT has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 85%, with the consensus congratulating the film for its actors, scares and the "emotionally-affecting story at its core", holds an 8 out of 10 on IMDb, and apparently 87% of Google users like the film (but I'm not sure anybody cares about that rating). In my humble opinion, these are all very, very wrong. This film is a bizarre mess that fails on every level for which critics seem to be congratulating it.

Characters
In horror films, having characters the audience are attached to is crucial, and this is proven harder by the audience not wanting to sympathise with horror characters, knowing they are only monster-chow. This is something IT does...relatively well with. Sort of. The only characters I actually like were: Bill, Beverly and maybe Ben and Mike. The rest, not at all. Richie is a self-centered douchebag, Stan's only character development is that he's Jewish, Eddie's just kind of...there...and forgettable, and Pennywise we'll get into later. Also, there's this weird sort-of love triangle between Bill, Beverly and Ben that nobody ever seems to bring up or question, it's just explained to us that both of them are attracted to Beverly and that she has at least something beyond simple friendship in mind for both of them (which makes no real sense when from the start of the movie she's bullied for being a slut and keeps telling everybody that she isn't). Bill, I like because I have to. He's the main character and the one with the most understandable/only motivation because Pennywise took his brother. Stan is interesting in terms of his background, being emotionally tortured to some extent with his work, and his ethnicity in the 1950s making him even more of an outsider to Derry and an easy target for the sadistic bullies.

Pennywise

Pennywise needs to be funny. That's why he's scary. Take away his comedy, and what makes him any different to the villains from any other horror movie? The thing that made him unique and scary in the 90s version was the sheer enjoyment of what he was doing. This could even be changed by little things, like when he starts dancing near the end of the movie, he could smile or laugh! Wouldn't that be a lot creepier? Everyone seems to agree that clowns are scary, but without the joy and comedy, he's not a clown. He's a generic horror villain in oversized clothes.

Scares, Structure, and Predictability

It's not scary. In the opening three minutes, you have a full understanding that this movie is not unique in any way. Georgie goes into the basement (and as the annoyingly chatty girl sitting next to me reminded her friend, "Rule One, don't go into the basement"). Going into the basement in a horror movie is a laughable cliché, second only to having true love's kiss breaking a spell over somebody (and thank god that never happened in this movie...), but it doesn't stop there. Georgie spots two lights in the corner looking at him, and he turns his torch on them, and it's just the reflection of light on some glass. Was anybody scared by this? Anybody who thought that this would actually be Pennywise ready to jump out at Georgie has never seen a horror film before. In fact, IT does a lot of what I call a 'fake-out scare', for example when somebody is outside in the dark, and they hear a noise (the music swells, and the character is terrified), and then we see that it was just a cat (from here it is optional whether the filmmakers decide to take advantage of the audience's state of relaxation post-adrenaline rush and give them a genuine scare, or just leave the scene). This is a terrible method of scaring people, second only to jump-scares because they are so overused. And it takes so little effort to just throw a bunch of fake-outs and jump-scares together, but that's what this entire 135-minute mess is. What it takes actual skill to do is make something creepy on a psychological level. Films like The Shining and The Babadook do this very well, spending a good while to establish characters for the audience to get attached to before introducing a genuinely unsettling antagonist (IT, however, opts to have a kill right off the bat so they can put creepy music over the title card).

The structure of this film is downright bizarre. For most of it, it's just people getting scared by Pennywise, and that gets repetitive and boring incredibly fast. In fact, by the second or third time this happens, Pennywise is no longer scary. It's very formulaic: Something creepy happens, Pennywise appears, Pennywise runs towards the kid in a fit of terrible camerawork and visual effects. That gets old fast. It's very sad that in this horror film, you end up wishing the 'scary' scenes were shorter so you can get back to whatever was happening before. If you like loud music and jumpscares over actual horror, then disregard this section. Also, the scares are so incredibly predictable. One kid gets separated from the other kids. A door closes behind them. Shocker. They can't open it. Oh no. They're shut in the room with Pennywise. Holy shit. Repeat.

Tone
This film is a tonal mess. I think the absolute best (worst) moment I can use as an example was when Beverly takes the Losers Club to her house and shows them her bathroom completely covered in blood from a traumatic experience she had from an entity holding her head in place while blood shot out of her sink. Her father couldn't see the blood, so she had no-one to confide in but it is now established that the Losers Club can too see it. And, I kid you not, Bill's reaction is "We can't leave it like this". What happens next, I can't be sure was real. And I sincerely hope it wasn't. There is literally a cleaning montage of the bathroom, complete with an upbeat soundtrack listing. I sat with my mouth wide open when I watched this. This is IT. This was meant to be the most terrifying horror film I'd ever seen (and I suppose it was, just not terrifying in the way it was meant to be). It's something that has to be seen to be believed, and I can't write about it for too much longer or I may lose the will to live.

Another cringe-ily forced aspect of this movie is the emphasis on teamwork. To be fair, it's not a terrible theme, and it's pretty much the go-to when writing a story about kids, but it feels very out of place when it's brought into the spotlight, for example when they have the big fight after leaving Cliché #72 (the haunted house) it feels like you're watching a lazily written kid's movie rather than a horror film which happens to star kids. And back to predictability, we ALL know that they're going to join forces to go after Pennywise at the end of the film because we've seen this cliché so many times before too.

Probably the second most annoying thing for me was Georgie at the end of the film. When Billy shot him with the bolt gun and he was just lying there with a hole in his head, I thought: "He's not waking up. Nothing's happening. Maybe this is the one good choice made in the film!". Imagine it. Pennywise reappearing elsewhere in the sewer and telling Billy that he actually did kill his brother, the person he has spent the whole film looking for. That would be a truly creepy moment that would solidify Pennywise as a uniquely hateable and manipulative villain. This could scar Billy still in the next film, and make him not even want to join the rest of the Lo- Oh wait, no, it's Pennywise. The lost opportunity here made me so angry I felt like walking out.

Comedy
There are some 'jokes' in this film too. Most of the comedy seems to come from Richie (when it should be Pennywise). If you haven't seen the film, imagine Jay from the Inbetweeners being two or three years younger, and not funny. They're all just jokes about STDs and sex, which does add some sense of realism to the character, but is insufferable when it makes up 70% of what comes out of his mouth. The rest mostly comes from the writers trying and failing to make Pennywise funny, like when he talks about popcorn and says 'Pop, pop' in a funny voice. Yup. That's what passes for comedy now. Though to be fair, IT is the funniest film I've seen in a while, just not in a good way.

Conveniences
Everything works out just a little too well in this movie. What are the chances that:

• One of the losers has been obsessed with researching the disappearances for children and the so much more of the material linked to Pennywise that the Losers can use
• One of the losers had access to a bolt gun and ammunition
• One of the losers had a vision of the group fighting Pennywise as adults, which turns out to be correct, and the rest of the Losers take it as fact

And these are just the big ones.

Other Questions
These are a few more little things that bugged me (but when there are too many of those little things, it can really have an impact):

• How is Ben still referred to as the "new kid" on the last day of school before summer? Did he start going to school there one or two weeks before the end of the year?
• How did Beverly know the Losers Club was diving into the water? They weren't really close friends at that point, and if something happened between when we saw her at the pharmacy and the diving scene, why wasn't that at least mentioned?
• Why is Pennywise holding an upside-down triangle of balloons when he scares Eddie rather than just the one? What sense does that make?
• Why does this film think a relationship must start with a girl being the first person to sign something? I mean, the yearbook, the cast...
• Why does Ben not go to the police after the bullies try to cut their names into his stomach? I know he might be scared that they'll come after him again, but this is literally a jailable offense and he could have been killed, and there are plenty of eyewitnesses to say that the bullies harassed him at school.
• Why do the Losers have a conversation about Pennywise out in public, in some sort of carnival at that, when they don't trust adults enough to tell them.
• If they trust Beverly's vision enough to swear that they'll come back if Pennywise does, why don't they go down into the place his body went before they leave? If they were determined enough to go into the sewers through the Well to get him the first time, why would they leave things to chance now?
• Why is Beverly and Bill's kiss at the end so important? Is this what the movie was about? Did I miss something? Are they going to address her relationship with Ben, or are they saving that for a cheap conflict in the sequel?
• In that part where the Losers throw rocks at the bullies, they should all be walking away from that fight with more than just a couple of scrapes. A lot more.

I've still got so much more to vent about this, but this is long enough already. Chapter Two might be alright, particularly if we go into Pennywise's backstory, but this was just terrible. The worst movie I have seen in a long, long time. And the sad part is, this isn't one of those movies where I'm constantly questioning why the production company let it be released. I know why. It's because it's the most formulaic, mainstream bullshit that, paired with a recognisable title and 'the Stranger Things kid', was designed to bring in the maximum box office possible (which, it has sadly succeeded in, so far sitting comfortably on over $400 million against a $35 million budget). As for the positive reviews, am I missing something? What was the "emotionally affecting story at its core"? I honestly want to know other people's opinions though, so please leave a comment telling me what you thought. If you think I'm wrong, please tell me because I REALLY want to like this movie. Let me know if there's something I missed.