“It: Chapter One” Review
With a great ensemble cast playing The Losers Club as children, “It: Chapter One” is among the best Stephen King adaptations made for the big screen.
When I was a kid, it was hard for me to grasp what it was like for a film to be a cultural phenomenon: a film so popular that everyone was not only seeing it but talking about it all the time. You hear stories about people fainting while watching “The Exorcist” or a deafening applause that greeted the end of every screening of “The Godfather” or lines wrapping around a city block to see “Jaws” or “Star Wars.” But for a kid from a small town, the closest I ever got to experiencing that was seeing the final “Harry Potter” film with a packed audience.
However, as a teenager and now in my twenties, I have seen quite a few films that not only make big money but become the cultural phenomena that I longed to see. Films like “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Black Panther,” “Avengers: Infinity War,” “Avengers: Endgame,” “Joker,” “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood,” “Knives Out,” “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and “A Quiet Place” were not only popular but even people who don’t regularly go to the theater felt the need to see them based on word-of-mouth. Even if only a couple of years have gone by, it’s still nostalgic to look back on some of these films and remember how they seemed to captivate the whole world. And this Halloween, my nostalgia points me to “It.”
Based on the Stephen King book of the same name, the film (now known retroactively as “It: Chapter One'') stars a group of talented young actors as “The Losers Club,” a group of outcast kids in Derry, Maine in 1989. When a strange demonic entity known as It, sometimes appearing as Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgård), begins attacking them and killing other kids, The Losers rally together to face their fears and, in the immortal words of Ritchie Tozier, “kill this fucking clown.”
If you’ve read last year’s review where I covered “It,” the 1990 mini-series, you’ll know that my favorite parts of the show and the book involved The Losers as children. It’s just more frightening to have a child being chased by a terrifying monster instead of an adult. So, the decision for the entire movie to be focused on the child characters was ingenious.
What’s even better is the film’s casting as every single one of the actors who play The Losers are incredible. I could go on and on about their talents and their ability to deal with these horrifying images in both childish and adult ways and have all of it be believable. In particular, Jaeden Martell as Bill, the leader of The Losers, is incredible as a young boy dealing with incredible guilt over his little brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) being killed by It, in the famed storm sewer scene. Despite being the only girl of the group, Sophia Lillis doesn’t let just that define her portrayal of Beverly as a cigarette smoking, swearing tomboy who uses her tough demeanor as a shield from her terrible home life.
As for the other actors, many of them have become successful stars and good for them because they deserve it after their performances in “It: Chapter One.” Besides playing Mike on “Stranger Things,” Finn Wolfhard is a stand-out as the foul-mouthed comedian Ritchie who makes the film funnier than you’d expect while also having an endearing friendship with Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) a hypochondriac who must overcome cowardice. Along with Stan (Wyatt Oleff), Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) and Mike (Chosen Jacobs), who are all outcasts because of their faith, weight and race respectively, you become so enamored with their childhood arcs that you have to remind yourself “Oh yeah, there’s a killer clown in this story.”
With an amazing physical performance, shapeshifting makeup and terrifying presence, Bill Skarsgård’s performances as Pennywise the clown, one of It’s many forms, has become the stuff of horror legend.
Speaking of which, Bill Skarsgård had some big shoes to fill (Get it? Because he’s a clown) as Pennywise who was made an icon by Tim Curry. However, his entire presence in the film is eerie and terrifying with a strange look, unnerving voice and imposing demeanor. While he’s not as funny as Curry, Skarsgård is scarier and that image of him with all of those red balloons is as iconic as Curry asking us if we have Prince Albert in a can.
Director Andy Muschetti really understood how badly audiences wanted an adaptation of the book that actually scared us and he certainly delivered. Some of the film’s scares do provide a bit of fun, like when The Losers find themselves hunting Pennywise in an abandoned house. The house begins to jump out at them and characters find themselves in rooms with scary images fresh out of a haunted house from hell with all the frights and excitement you’d expect.
Other scares in the film are not only serious, but elicit a visceral reaction of fear. Scenes from the book, like blood spraying out of the sink and scaring Beverly, are given a visual treatment that filmmakers like Tim Burton, Guillermo Del Toro and Mike Flanagan dream of.
The opening sewer sequence, where Georgie is murdered, is the ultimate test because most audiences who know anything about “It” know about that scene and what’s going to happen. The question isn’t “is Georgie going to die,” it’s how. Unlike the original mini-series, which had Pennywise grab Georgie’s arm with the boy screaming and then the scene dissolved to his funeral, the film shows Pennywise biting his arm off and dragging the screaming boy into the sewer. Not only is that a hell of a way to start the film, it also made us aware that we were getting a real Stephen King film.
“It: Chapter One” is definitely one of the best adaptations of King’s horror stories especially considering that there’s so much to condense into a film. Even if the filmmakers wanted to include The Losers as adults in this film instead of making “It: Chapter Two,” what would be the point aside from weakening the story? Only adapting portions of the story set in the past was a smart decision and, despite obviously being a two-part adaptation, the film stands nicely on its own. Even if the film bombed at the box office, we’d still have an entertaining horror film.
However, there are aspects of the film that deny it the perfection of other King adaptations like “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Misery.” The film is set in 1989 but it’s clear that the filmmakers just wanted to set the story in the past so they could make a film about The Losers as adults in modern day. So, the film has a timeless feel with very few references to 80s pop culture which sets it apart from films and shows like “Stranger Things” which proudly wears the 1980s on its sleeve.
But there are moments where “It: Chapter One” veers away from this tone to hammer in the 1980s for laughs. However, despite having some funny moments, these scenes fall flat on their comedic value. Even people who like New Kids on the Block are going to be groaning at a few of these references. The famous rock fight, where The Losers rescue Mike from a gang of sadistic bullies led by the disturbed Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton), is also set to heavy metal music and it doesn’t really enhance the film.
Speaking of Mike, he hardly makes an impact on the film until The Losers save him about halfway through the film. Until then, he’s only got a couple of scenes. I don’t really hold it as a major problem because it has to be hard keeping seven main characters interesting and in the story enough times to leave an impression. But I feel that the film could have been better if all of its characters made contributions throughout the entire story.
“It: Chapter One” is a glorious adaptation and is incredibly entertaining, even for someone like me. I may be in the minority but I don’t think “It” is one of Stephen King’s greatest books. It’s good, don't get me wrong, but I’ve read a lot of his work and there are so many stories that don’t have the structural issues I take with this incredibly long novel. However, “It: Chapter One” and its sequel make me want to take the book off the shelf and give it another chance to be my favorite work from the master of horror. It may keep an entire generation of children afraid of clowns, but it also may be one horror film that you can’t go without seeing every Halloween.
