Stephen King's It (remake)

[Bert]

Ok, I saw it again. Still think it was very mediocre. Nobody has really listed any reasons as to why it was brilliant and phenomenal except for imagery, layers, and references...

So the references were cool. As an 80's kid I appreciate references, however it takes more than a Gremlins poster, T-shirts and Movie billboards to give a film 2 thumbs up.

Imagery - actually what I hated about this the most. The "imagery" of pennywise was so over-the-top and CGI and honestly I hated it.

He didn't need to fly at Bill in the basement, he didn't need to go all Zoolander in the train car, and he didn't need to go all Jigsaw in the sewer against the bully.


Layers - Yeah, this story is great because of the layers. The kids are dealing with Bullies,,,, Parents that dont care, Clueless adults in the town, the usual pains of growing up, and a psychotic evil spider clown. Uhh, all those things were in the novel series and the mini series, so why is this film so AMAZING for having the layers that were built into the story?

The whole Novel is about the layers, that is the essence of this story. The kids are completely on their own. Their parents dont see it and wont listen, and the whole town pretends it's not happening while also they are dodging bullies, molester parents, weird pharmacists, and all the other NORMAL childhood problems like puberty.... Oh and also a supernatural psychotic clown monster hunting them all. Again, all created by king, so I'm not sure why I have to give this director all this praise for following the source material.


I honestly dont get what all you guys think about this movie that makes it AMAZING, INCREDIBLE! BEST HORROR MOVIE IN YEARS!

The ending was super weak. Pennywise had multiple opportunities to kill the kids and didn't. The kids barely built up any relationships. I mean Ben and Bev bonded over NKOTB but who doesn't? Everyone else was just thrown together and was like; Did we just become best friends?????

It's fine that you guys like this, but I'm not going to be labeled as this cinematic idiot just because I didn't like it. I didn't HATE it the second time, but I still didn't think it was anywhere near "good" or even anywhere near Cabin in the Woods territory. My biggest complaint? AT NO POINT WAS IT SCARY WHATSOEVER. It was way funnier than it was scary. The banter between the boys was great. Everything else in the film was meh.

 

[Stout]

Bert, I'll address some of the layers I mentioned before, because you didn't peel them back in your viewings. Which is perfectly fine; I've watched movies and completely missed things like this.

The facial similarities between Henry and Pennywise really struck a chord with me. The cast that has the giant V, correcting the word to loVer, is reflected when Beverly cups Bill's face with her bleeding hand, her fingers in a V-shape on his face, which also recalls her sexual awakening with a call back to getting her first period. They see a turtle in the green water while swimming in the quarry, and later, Bill drops his brother's green Lego turtle, symbolically representing his guilt in killing his brother by both making the boat and (this bit may just be me) sealing his fate by sealing the boat with wax.

That's some of what I picked up. Layers.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

Bert "I don't get all of the hype. The movie was mediocre. The movie was 'Meh.' I saw it again..." Wait, what?! LOL

You like seeing mediocre 'Meh' movies multiple times?

#masochist

 

[Dan H]

I haven't seen it, but a "critic" from Vulture on NPR this morning said that the fact that it was set in the 80s and not in the 50s/60s like the original was a huge problem. Saying that no kid in the 80s would approach a clown talking to them from the sewer...

That, plus the fact that nu-Pennywise is creepy as hell. At least old Pennywise could be charming when he needed to.

I liked the movie, but I had a lot of quibbles. Cut/paste from my review:


Some of the story decisions involving the characters were strange.

Ben – his mother is non-entity in the film; she’s never seen on screen. This is understandable to some extent because she is, in many ways, a similar character to Eddie’s mom, but we never see her, nor is the death of Ben’s father ever mentioned, if he’s even dead in the movie version. Ben does write the poem, though he never mails it. There is no dam scene (one of my particular favorite parts of both the book and the mini-series.)

Beverly – her mom is removed from the movie entirely save for one reference. Her father is actually played pretty well. It’s a more subtle menace than the over-the-top performance we had in the mini-series, and his later, IT-prompted actions toward her are closer to the book. There’s no slingshot. That kills one of the great things about her character. The entire Club, in fact, suffer the consequences of that. Instead of the meticulous plan, the casting of the silver slugs, Beverly is basically used as bait to draw the rest of the kids to It. She’s the first one to realize that It won’t hurt them if they aren’t afraid, which basically kneecaps one of the themes of the book. Fear was a seasoning; It could still kill you. She’s still a cool character, but the changes make her and the rest of the group more reactive than proactive.

Bill – Bill and Georgie’s mom can be heard playing piano, but she’s never seen and has no dialogue. In the book, It rips off Georgie’s arm and leaves him in the gutter to bleed to death. In the film, we see the dismemberment, and we also see Georgie pulled into the sewers. This leads into one quite good scene with Bill’s dad, showing how Bill has become somewhat obsessed with trying to find his brother, insisting that he’s alive. This is a powerful scene, and Bill’s belief that his brother is alive is used to powerful effect later in It’s lair, but it strains credulity a bit much. If he’s been in the sewers all this time, what’s he been eating? Why didn’t he die of blood loss or infection? The scene is drawn-out and filmed in such a way to lead the viewer to think, wow, Bill was right, his brother is alive, but it’s an obvious twist. Just one of the very strange decisions made about the confrontation in the lair.

Eddie – Eddie’s character is the most unchanged from the book, but there are still some big issues. He learns in the pharmacy that his medicine is a placebo, but it’s from the pharmacist’s nasty daughter, who then signs his cast with “Loser”. It was a nice touch, especially the funny way that Eddie modified it. The confrontation with Henry Bowers when his arm is broken is removed; his arm is broken in the first fight with It at the house on Neibolt Street. One of the things that I’m still scratching my head over was the decision to have Eddie cast away his medicine before the final fight with It. It undercuts the theme that a child’s belief has power, and we lose a couple of great potential “battery acid” scenes in the balance.

Mike – Mike’s character is a bit butchered, in all honesty. He’s still a farm kid, but he lives with his grandfather. His mother and father died in a house fire, which is the source of his fear that It manipulates. His love of history is shifted off to Ben (which . . . okay, you have to give Ben something to do since his understanding of engineering is taken away by the removal of the dam scene, but how do you then say Mike stayed in Derry as the librarian? Because he’s a home schooled kid?) I don’t know. It was annoying. There is no smoke hole scene, which makes sense because Mike is not a history buff and doesn’t know about the tradition. Maybe we’ll get that scene in flashback in the second chapter. Also, in the book, Henry Bowers kills Mike’s dog. In the film, Bowers makes reference to the house fire, and you think wow, they really amped up the antagonist . . . but no. He says “wish I’d done it.” The moment kind of falls flat as a result, and we’re never overtly told just why Bowers hates Mike so, though it’s obvious from subtext.

Richie – Richie was great. He is hilariously unfunny throughout. Every single one of his jokes falls flat, which is going to make his adult evolution even more interesting. But . . . we didn’t get the Voices hurting It. Maybe that’s because there’s no dam scene, and thus no reference for his Irish copper accent? I don’t know. But there is no Ritual of Chud (no history from Mike, no smoke-hole, etc.) Which makes the fight in It’s lair super, super off.

Stan – Movie Stan isn’t a bird watcher. He doesn’t get much depth at all, really, save for being portrayed as the lazy son of the rabbi who’s not studied up for his bar mitzvah. His fear involves a creepy painting in his father’s office, and that’s an avatar of It that is very well-realized. It was creepy as all get out, and, at one point, I thought they might be giving us a twist and killing Stan off early to avoid having the suicide scene in the next chapter. (Don’t complain about spoilers, the book’s been out for 30+ years.)

Okay, so the kids finally get down into the sewers for their final fight after wounding It.

Henry Bowers at this point is under It’s influence (and up until this point, the Bowers scenes are very, very well done. He’s a truly menacing bully.) Except, instead of being the patsy for all of the murders, he’s basically shoved down a well, never to be heard from again. Okay, weird, but I can go with it.

So instead of being forced into the sewers by Bowers and his gang, they’re going in to save Bev. During Bev’s exploration of It’s lair (which, I will admit, is spectacularly represented. Much better than the mini-series, for sure. Though I kept looking for a little door. Maybe next movie.) she discovers the missing floating in mid-air, orbiting the junk pile that It seems to be living within. When It discovers that she no longer fears It, we get some pretty ham-handed foreshadowing of the deadlights, and she falls into a trance, and begins floating herself.

The kids find the lair, they pull Bev down, and there’s a cool/cute scene where Ben kisses her and wakes her up. It’s almost like a Disney movie, what with true love’s first kiss and all.

So It, attacks, morphs into various monstrous forms (Ben’s fear of the mummy is used to good effect, here) and even possibly foreshadow’s It’s arachnid form when it grows desperate.

But there’s no Chud, there’s no silver, there’s no battery acid. They basically beat It to death with pieces of rebar and metal stakes from the fence around the house at Neibolt Street, and it flees into a pipe and falls out of sight, much like Bowers did. Flash-forward, summer is over, the kids swear to come back if It returns, fade to black.

As I look back, it may seem that I’m quibbling about a lot, but the only real egregious things are the disarming of Bev and the usage of her as the damsel in distress, the changes to Mike’s character (with Ben, my favorite in the book), and the final beat down.

In short, it just seems like a lot of changes were made without consideration of the second part. And the news has already come out that Mike is a "junkie librarian" due to staying in Derry. Holy lazy writing, Batman.

 

[Covert Rain]

I thought I gave multiple reasons. I thought the writing, cast and director were great. This movie felt like Stand By Me but in a horror genre. I thought there was a great balance between horror, humor and drama which typically in the movies is sorely unbalanced. I loved how the imagery in the film often was a parallel to what was going on with each character.

In terms of Pennywise he feeds on fear. The more fear the stronger he gets. If he just snuck up on everyone and killed them he couldn't get stronger.

In terms of scares? Plenty of people jumped several times but as I stated above it was a balanced movie. It wasn't meant to be Insidious.

To each his own. I was a big fan of the book and mini-series and feel this movie nailed it. They are trying to squeeze a book or mini-series into a couple movies which I thought would be impossible. They had to compress some story for sure and some details were missing but I expected that. My expectations were low going in.

Not everyone has to agree on every movie. I don't think that makes you an idiot. It just means people have different tastes or viewpoints. It's cool. We are seeing it again this weekend but my son and wife are going.

 

[Cheesebeef]

I had to divorce myself from the book And the mini-series IT because I knew there was no WAY this could live up, so I was entertained, but t Thought it was a solid Stranger Things-esque type flick and that was all.

NEVER scary. I mean, come on Tim Curry in LOADED WEAPON was scarier than that IT.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Ok, I saw it again. Still think it was very mediocre. Nobody has really listed any reasons as to why it was brilliant and phenomenal except for imagery, layers, and references...

So the references were cool. As an 80's kid I appreciate references, however it takes more than a Gremlins poster, T-shirts and Movie billboards to give a film 2 thumbs up.

Imagery - actually what I hated about this the most. The "imagery" of pennywise was so over-the-top and CGI and honestly I hated it.

He didn't need to fly at Bill in the basement, he didn't need to go all Zoolander in the train car, and he didn't need to go all Jigsaw in the sewer against the bully.


Layers - Yeah, this story is great because of the layers. The kids are dealing with Bullies,,,, Parents that dont care, Clueless adults in the town, the usual pains of growing up, and a psychotic evil spider clown. Uhh, all those things were in the novel series and the mini series, so why is this film so AMAZING for having the layers that were built into the story?

The whole Novel is about the layers, that is the essence of this story. The kids are completely on their own. Their parents dont see it and wont listen, and the whole town pretends it's not happening while also they are dodging bullies, molester parents, weird pharmacists, and all the other NORMAL childhood problems like puberty.... Oh and also a supernatural psychotic clown monster hunting them all. Again, all created by king, so I'm not sure why I have to give this director all this praise for following the source material.


I honestly dont get what all you guys think about this movie that makes it AMAZING, INCREDIBLE! BEST HORROR MOVIE IN YEARS!

The ending was super weak. Pennywise had multiple opportunities to kill the kids and didn't. The kids barely built up any relationships. I mean Ben and Bev bonded over NKOTB but who doesn't? Everyone else was just thrown together and was like; Did we just become best friends?????

It's fine that you guys like this, but I'm not going to be labeled as this cinematic idiot just because I didn't like it. I didn't HATE it the second time, but I still didn't think it was anywhere near "good" or even anywhere near Cabin in the Woods territory. My biggest complaint? AT NO POINT WAS IT SCARY WHATSOEVER. It was way funnier than it was scary. The banter between the boys was great. Everything else in the film was meh.

I float there too, Bert. I float there too.

Ok... I didn't HATE like Bert did, but man, it seemed like a slightly better version of Stranger Things. And why even have the Jew and Black kid in it? They were literally JUST more kids.

Fun though... though that might only be because the Cards won a laughable game and they sell booze in the theater.

 

[Chaplin]

I thought it was a horror version of Stranger Things as well, but really well done. Intriguing that they do Part 1 with the kids, and the inevitable sequel will be all the kids as adults.

 

[BigRedRage]

I saw it without my son, will likely take him to see it. As long as he gets the message in the end, no reason to be scared after.

I was thoroughly entertained, havent seen the original in 20 years and remember next to nothing about it except I did try to rewatch once and found it slow and boring.

This movie never seemed slow, I was always engaged. It was more funny than scary, it wasnt scary to me but RARELY is a movie scary to me. I thought it was very well done, I felt like part of the movie and enjoyed it very much.

You guys are lucky we arent measuring our dong size to choose whos review is the best! (Man that kid was awesome)

 

[Covert Rain]

My wife ended up chickening out. I will work on her this weekend. My son and his friend went to see it and they loved it too. Still going to try to convince the wife to see it.

 

[Cheesebeef]

arms behind door - check
flickering projector - check
sewer jump scare- check
pennywise in water - check

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Although im still probably gonna see it regardless

what was it you were right about again?

 

[Bert]

what was it you were right about again?

It's Bodha, so in his mind? Literally everything.

 

[Covert Rain]

what was it you were right about again?

I can already tell you its going to fail for the fact they will try way too hard to "make it scary".

*cough* $189 Million *cough* Box office records falling *cough*

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[Bert]

Bert "I don't get all of the hype. The movie was mediocre. The movie was 'Meh.' I saw it again..." Wait, what?! LOL

You like seeing mediocre 'Meh' movies multiple times?

#masochist

It was curiosity at best. I was in a bad mood when I saw it the first time. Everyone else seemed to love it so I decided to give it a second chance based off everyone elses ravings.

Is it really that confusing? See I can actually admit that I'm not always right BIM and I'm willing to reconsider things based off my friends opinions. I don't just form my opinion and then sit back and make snarky comments, because I'm not a pompous, arrogant jerk.

 

[oaken1]

It was curiosity at best. I was in a bad mood when I saw it the first time. Everyone else seemed to love it so I decided to give it a second chance based off everyone elses ravings.

Is it really that confusing? See I can actually admit that I'm not always right BIM and I'm willing to reconsider things based off my friends opinions. I don't just form my opinion and then sit back and make snarky comments, because I'm not a pompous, arrogant jerk.

it was a good move Bert. I did the same thing with the force awakens because it kinda sucked the first time around.

Thinking I may have to do it with Guardians 2...saw it the other day but there were lots of people preparing for a party and I could not hear most of the dialogue...walked away unimpressed.

 

[BigRedRage]

It was curiosity at best. I was in a bad mood when I saw it the first time. Everyone else seemed to love it so I decided to give it a second chance based off everyone elses ravings.

Is it really that confusing? See I can actually admit that I'm not always right BIM and I'm willing to reconsider things based off my friends opinions. I don't just form my opinion and then sit back and make snarky comments, because I'm not a pompous, arrogant jerk.

lol


Love ya Bert. Hope all is well.

 

[BillsCarnage]

I liked it. Wasn't scary to me, but few horror movies are anymore... Reminded me more of the first time I saw the Shining. The kid actors were solid.

Richie had some great one-liners.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

It was curiosity at best. I was in a bad mood when I saw it the first time. Everyone else seemed to love it so I decided to give it a second chance based off everyone elses ravings.

Is it really that confusing? See I can actually admit that I'm not always right BIM and I'm willing to reconsider things based off my friends opinions. I don't just form my opinion and then sit back and make snarky comments, because I'm not a pompous, arrogant jerk.

Gee. Why so serious? I guess a smiley face is lost in translation with you, eh? I clearly understood why you watched it again and was just joking around, but whatever. We're just on different wavelengths or something.

 

[Cheesebeef]

I liked it. Wasn't scary to me, but few horror movies are anymore... Reminded me more of the first time I saw the Shining. The kid actors were solid.

Richie had some great one-liners.

man... the Shining scared me ish-less! Maybe that's because I saw it as a fifteen year old, but I'd already made it through living with Ouchie and Brother Not Ouchie and if i could make it through that hell, you'd think the Shining would freak the hell out of me... but it did. It did.

 

[cardfaninfl]

man... the Shining scared me ish-less! Maybe that's because I saw it as a fifteen year old, but I'd already made it through living with Ouchie and Brother Not Ouchie and if i could make it through that hell, you'd think the Shining would freak the hell out of me... but it did. It did.

If someone pulled a prank with two girls wearing blue dresses at the end of hallway in a hotel I was staying... that would be the end of me. Massive coronary, stroke, etc., roll credits.

Finally, went to see 'IT'. After 'Stranger Things' I was nervous about another hyped project relying on child actors, but the young stars did well.

 

[Bert]

We're just on different wavelengths or something.

I agree. I feel like the only time you ever quote me is to mock me or attempt to make me feel dumb. But I guess perspective is everything. Good day sir.

 

[ajcardfan]

I saw this twice. With two different daughters. It was ok. The plot was amazingly similar to Super 8. My oldest daughter and I (all my girls loved that movie) came up with around 6 or so exact similarities. I suppose it was coincidence, but still...

I got bored with the clown. He was not scary. My girls were not scared. But, as an adventure and comedy it was entertaining enough. The kid with the glasses was hilarious and 100% spot on with how high school freshmen talk to each other.


The sequel, when they are in their 40s? Sounds very doubtful to me that it will be as good as this one. The kid actors made this movie. I don't think I will care to see middle aged people fighting this stupid clown.

NOTE" this is one King book I have never read.

 

[Cheesebeef]

If someone pulled a prank with two girls wearing blue dresses at the end of hallway in a hotel I was staying... that would be the end of me. Massive coronary, stroke, etc., roll credits.

haha... you and me both!