In defence of IT Chapter Two

• SPOILERS* Obviously 😊 So don’t read this if you’ve yet to see it.

IT Chapter two. It wasn’t great was it? I literally hate that I’ve had to say this, but it really is true. However, I feel that I must defend it as all the reviews I’ve seen don’t seem to have fully understood the source material and may not even have seen the original for TV movie — everyone expected a horror movie, and IT isn’t that. Yes, it has elements of horror, but it isn’t the heart of the story.

The stronger part of the story are the friendships forged from childhood, and the horrors that bring them back together in adulthood. How trauma has shaped all their lives since then — repeating patterns of behaviour (Bev never able to form a healthy relationship, Richie never being able to be anything more than the class clown to hide his true feelings etc.) being an obvious point.

Going back to the original, I think a lot of people around my age were absolutely terrified by Pennywise and so we recognise IT as a horror story and it certainly explains a spike in Coulrophobia in people who are now in their 30s/40s! I remember watching that film the first time round and being absolutely terrified all the way through, and then the ending being utterly rubbish — all that and IT was a giant spider? Whatever!! Bring back Tim Curry to eat my soul!

image c/o Wikipedia

This is one thing that part 2 got right — there was still an element of Pennywise there at the end, a human horror element, the face that has tormented you up until now (those few seconds where you see human Pennywise daubing on his makeup really haunted me!). I think that is something that the new screenplay could have done well with pursuing; humans are a source of horror on their own; the bogeyman is already out there; it doesn’t need to have a big monster unleashed until the end. The part where Beverley revisits her childhood home saw enough horror to scar her for life, and it wasn’t a clown or some gangly armed old lady monster (which looked like the monster in Mama just saying!) that inflicted the pain and suffering, it was her father. In the first film version, the kindly old lady spoke with the voice of her father whilst pouring blood in to a teacup (it’s been a while since I saw the original to be fair, so I may not be quite right) — I can still remember the line that Pennywise says to Beverley and it still scares me; “You’ll die if you try, Beverley”. Pennywise took on human form because the adults in their lives were horrible enough to get to traumatise them, no ‘monster’ required.

A lot has been said of the casting in both films, and in this instance, the kids win the day; but then the main building blocks of the story are with those kids. They’re the ones you’re rooting for — did you really care about the adult characters all that much in the first one? I don’t remember being all that bothered by them — I quite liked Eddie as an adult as he found his courage right at the end after years of being over protected by a terrified mother, and in the book, ending up with someone just like her! Also, Ben and Beverley finally getting together after 27 years was so heart-warming (but did I come here for a love story, no, at least I didn’t expect to). The rest of the adults are just truly damaged people; not sure of their place in the world called back to a duty that most of them would rather forget. They’re not heroes; those kids are. The casting for both parts is astounding, but the stronger part of the story was always the first part and making the 2nd part of the film so long (2h 47m!) did not help in the slightest.

My favourite elements of the film were ones that were closer to the book, or things that only King fans would pick up on. The first scenes with the gay bashing happened in the book, which sets the scene of humans being far worse to each other than any monster could be — also seeing Xavier Dolan in a mainstream movie was pleasing (the scenes he was a part of was not, obviously) and I would love to see him in more major roles. There is also a section where Bill Denham is writing and it is either the exact same study as was used in Stand by Me, or damn close to it which made me near enough giddy with delight — could possibly have been Stephen Kings own study *fangasm sploosh*, also Stephen King in a bit part was just lovely as the shopkeeper who sells Bill back his childhood bike, the Silver Bullet; but little was made of the bike in this version (other than bridging a gap in the script and getting Bill to the next logical point) which is a shame as upon Bill leaving the shop he says of the bike that it could run down the devil himself and that’s the last you really see of that — for the kids it was their chariot, their saviour, and as most horror movie fans know, a silver bullet can easily take care of a werewolf and certainly slow down a vampire or two. As an adult, the bike is used merely as a token gesture of a different time, and that’s that. There’re a couple more dead ends like that; whether that was down to the editing (will Muschietti’s supercut come to life? I hope so!) trying to make it shorter, I don’t know. I would have loved to see more of Pennywise as a human, and that was only touched upon briefly but was genuinely the most haunting parts.

The parts I didn’t really like was the alarming amount of fat jokes. Yes, Ben as a kid was fat, and then as an adult he’s this hot, hugely successful architect, but his friends can’t get past the fat thing. I don’t remember it being that big a point to make in the first film apart from the one liner ‘kiss me fat boy’ which was used again in the remake, but that was only really it — in this version it’s an ongoing joke which points to lazy writing in my mind (but obviously as a fat woman, I’ll take it slightly personally!), and add to the dead ends scattered about (and already mentioned) this adds to the general ‘not great’ vibe.

The direction and production are awesome though. I am a fan of both Andy and Barbara Muschietti’s work so far, and they’ve made a beautiful thing, and anything that can make me enjoy the ending of IT takes some doing and gathering such a monumental cast is great — it’s just a shame that most of my issues are around the screenplay. Technically very sound, built on slightly wonky text — but I’m not a screenwriter so what do I know? Writing a screenplay based on that huge book cannot be an easy task and I wouldn’t know even where to begin (apart from cutting *that* scene — read the book!!) especially when this was written when King was very definitely at the height of his drug dependency, let alone it being a much beloved part of King’s work — it’s a mountain to even try to get down in to a manageable piece and no matter what, it won’t please everyone. It’s like if someone tried to make my favourite Clive Barker book in to a film (Imajica, FYI) there is literally no way anyone could possibly do it justice due to the sheer size of the scope of the story, and it’s a similar thing for IT.

Overall if you go to see IT to be scared out of your wits, that’s not going to happen — unless you genuinely don’t like horror movies and have been talked in to going (I know a good amount of people like this) or you have genuine Coulrophobia, in which case why would you even go you masochist? 😊 It’s long, not overly scary and unless you have a real interest in King’s work, the little parts may well fly over your head (Andy Muschietti is in the movie, but you wouldn’t know that if you don’t know what he looks like). It’s charming in ways you wouldn’t expect, and the genuine kinship shown between the characters is the only thing that keeps this tied together. Watch it for completions sake, and it is worth seeing on a big screen, but just be aware it has flaws and to enjoy it as much as you can.