Review #179: It (2017)

This review was originally written in 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #34: It (2017)

I read It about twenty years ago; it's probably the longest book I've read in full. I think the book is very, very good (though also very, very Stephen King, which means there's a lot in its pages that makes it quantitatively worse than it could be) and for the most part this movie is a faithful adaptation... of half of it. I'll save most of my book vs. movie complaints for later on, but I'll just say that the book itself is two very important and very intertwined halves of a story, and while I understand the reasoning to cut it in half (doing the whole book justice would take well over four hours' worth of screentime), I really do think it does the whole story a disservice when this entire film starts and ends with the characters as kids. The book is constantly jumping back and forth between the child half of the story and the adult half, to the point where you don't actually reach the conclusion of either story until the end (at which point you have so much more context for both stories). So of course this movie is kind of hamstrung for that reason, but whatever the case, this is probably something close to the best they could have done.

Overall this movie is really good. It's pretty obvious that it's an adaptation of a novel (and a really long one at that), because in every single scene, it is OOZING with detail. All of the characters are fully realized people, with likes, dislikes, pasts, and futures; every location is fully lived-in and believable; and there's so much backstory that ends up on the screen (and plenty of hints at the backstory that remains behind) that you'd be hard pressed to not feel like this was based on a real place and real group of people. The performances are almost all fantastic, the imagery of the horrific elements are terrifying and cloying, and this movie is a visual and aural treat from beginning to end. The plot has twists and turns, and there's plenty of details that you won't notice at first and you get rewarded for going back and watching it over. I personally really liked the second movie as well (I think the adult story tends to get short shrift, both in this adaptation and in the 90s one with Tim Curry) but the overwhelming impression I've gotten is that this is the one people prefer, so I can understand why it's the only one on this list.

This film isn't without issues, though, and most of the issues I had with it weren't problems in the book, they only became problems when the filmmakers decided to make deliberate changes to the story, much to the film's detriment. Two big ones that come to mind: Beverly Marsh and Mike Hanlon.

In the book (and in the first 75% of the movie), Beverly was a fairly strong female character. (At least, to my memory. I'd be willing to bet her characterization in King's novel could use some modernization.) But for some reason, the filmmakers decided to have her get kidnapped and turned into a Damsel In Distress for the latter part of the film. Why? Why, filmmakers? Pennywise could have kidnapped anyone else. Literally anyone. Kidnap Ben. Or Eddie. Or Bill even! Heck, kidnap Mike- it'd actually give the actor something to do, for crying out loud. I can't help but notice the one person who gets Damsel'd just happens to be the one female character. (And again, this wasn't a thing in the book. None of the kids had to be rescued in the book!)

Mike possibly got it even worse, though. His entire role in the book- seriously, the ONLY purpose he serves in the entire titanic novel- was to be the town's historian, relaying to the reader the history of It's role in the town of Derry going back generations. So when the movie came around, the writers decided to instead give 100% of that role to Ben Hanscom instead! What sense does that make? When the characters need to be told about the African American nightclub that got burnt down twenty years earlier, who do you think should be the one to tell them- the black kid whose dad was in that very nightclub (and was saved at the last moment by Dick Halloran from The Shining)? Or a white kid who literally just moved into town? It makes no sense. Like how the writers decided somebody needed to be kidnapped and so they changed the story to make the only girl into a Damsel, they took the ONE character trait given to the ONE black character and instead passed it on to a white character, in a way that doesn't even make sense in the context of the story. But they still left Mike in the movie, so that character is just kind of... there, not really doing anything or serving any purpose, because all of his lines got said by Ben instead. I just don't get it.

Another thing that seems to have gotten a lot of praise, but I just don't like: Bill Skarsgard's role as Pennywise. I hate how he looks and I hate how he sounds. Nobody in their right mind would ever see him and smile and laugh (like Georgie does in the first scene), because he looks terrifying and his voice sounds so artificial and quiet. Like, dude, just do a real voice. Try it and see how it sounds. If the entire point of the Pennywise form for this ancient shapeshifting flesh-devouring monster is to lure people into a false sense of comfort before he munches on their arm or whatever, why did he make himself look so unnerving and discomforting, even at first glance? It's like the Annabelle doll in the Conjuring series. Annabelle was a real doll, in real life, that was (supposedly) really haunted. In real life it was just a Raggedy Ann doll (you can see pictures of it online). But when they made the movie series about it, they instead made it into this grotesque, obviously-haunted porcelain doll because that would look scarier on movie posters. The whole reason that the "creepy clown" idea exists is because, by default, clowns AREN'T supposed to look scary, so when they turn out to be homicidal maniacs or timeless spider-bodied demons, the juxtaposition is so much more pronounced. But when Pennywise looks and sounds like a demon right from jump, it kind of feels like the filmmakers missed the point. But are they doing it because they missed the point, or because this is what the audience expects? I don't know. I really don't.

Anyway, those things aside I think this is a really enjoyable film and I would also recommend reading the book if you're in for a long one. (Just maybe like... skip the part where all the adolescent protagonists have a gangbang at the end, and no that's not a joke. Stephen King was on some really weird drugs when he wrote that book.)

Overall Rating: 7/10 Red Balloons That Float

Favorite Subtle Background Scare: The Librarian creeping towards Ben for the duration of one single shot that is never directly addressed in-film. Freaked me out the first time I saw it!