IT

Growing up, I was a huge fan of Stephen King and continue to read his novels today. However, if I were to rank my favorite novels of his, IT would be at the top of the list along with 'Salem's Lot, The Stand, and Misery. At it's core is a potent tale of childhood fears and the power of friendship that really struck a chord with me. I had a lot of fondness for the 1990 mini-series adaptation of the novel, which I reviewed here, but I was also open to a new adaptation that could perhaps cover the book better than the original mini-series could without the constraints of network television. Boy, did they ever deliver a great film.

In the fall of 1988 in the small town of Derry, Maine, Bill Denbrough (played by Jaeden Lieberher), is sick at home. He makes a paper boat for his little brother Georgie (played by Jackson Robert Scott) to play with out in the rain. Georgie sails the boat down the rainswept gutters until it falls into one of the storm drains. There he meets Pennywise the clown (played by Bill Skarsgard), who offers to give him back his boat but winds up killing him instead. We then flash forward to Summer of 1989 where we find a distraught Bill obsessed with figuring out what happened to his brother when his friends Eddie Kasprak (played by Jack Dylan Grazer) and Richie Tozier (played by Finn Wolfhard) just want to have fun and enjoy their summer.  They soon meet Ben Hanscom (played by Jeremy Ray Taylor), who is the target of school bully Henry Bowers (played by Nicholas Hamilton), and welcome him into their ranks as well as fellow classmates, the tomboy Beverly Marsh (played by Sophie Lillis) and home schooled Mike Hanlon (played by Chosen Jacobs). As they bond, they all discover they have been having visions of things they fear, things that have tried to terrify and ultimately kill them. Tying them all together has been sightings of the malicious clown Pennywise. They tie Pennywise and the other monsters they have been seeing to a rash of disappearances of children around town that started with Bill's brother Georgie and that what they see is an evil being that takes the form of whatever they fear the most. They look back into the history of the town and discover that the same thing has happened in the town over and over again every 27 years since the town was first settled. They also realize that somehow the adults are oblivious to what is going on in the town, aside from kids disappearing, and determine it's up to them to stop Pennywise once and for all.  

The original novel by Stephen King told the story over the course of 27 years, first with the characters as kids and then as adults returning to Derry to face the childhood evil again. This film wisely focuses on the first half of the story with them as children, which was always the strongest part of the story anyway. Director Andy Muschietti, along with screenwriter Chase Palmer, does a good job of distilling King's expansive narrative into a thoroughly terrifying and yet surprisingly touching 2 hour and 15 minute film. Clearly not everything could be included, but they were able to figure out what was most important and translate it to the screen with style and grace while updating the story from the late 50's in the novel to the late 80's with ease. 

Certain memorable sequences from the book and Mini-Series turn up here, such as the Lucky Seven looking through a photo album becomes a slide show in the remake (with a few memorably terrifying additions). Also the sequence where blood bursts out of Beverly's sink gets a gruesome update for the R-rated film, with her and the entire room getting coated in the stuff. The film also includes the subsequent scene where she shows it to the others and discovers that only the kids can see it, not the adults like her father. They subsequently help her clean it all up in a montage set to perhaps the best use of The Cure's "Six Different Ways" I've seen in a film. But even more than specific moments, they beautifully capture the spirit of the book that has left me enamored of it all these years later. The triumphant power of friendship and the discovery by these kids that they are all stronger together than they ever were apart. That more than anything is what continues to resonate with me, whether it be the novel, the 1990 mini-series or this new film. 

The acting in the film is fantastic and the casting is perfectly on point as well. Aside from Jaeden Lieberher (who I knew from the fantastic Midnight Special and the not so fantastic The Book of Henry) and Finn Wolfhard (who I know from the fantastic Stranger Things), these kids were largely new to me and each beautifully captured their characters. From the tomboyish Beverly to the loudmouthed Richie to the clumsy Ben and mournful Mike and Bill, each actor really brought their characters to life in a tangible and real way. They also really sold their friendship as a group as well with a real sense on camaraderie developing between each of the characters. The film does a reasonably good job of developing each of the friends as well, with Bill dealing with his brother having gone missing, as well as his role in that since he made the boat for Georgie, Beverly dealing with her abusive father, Eddie and his issues with his ridiculously overprotective mother, Mike dealing with the tragic death of his parents in a fire which left him in the care of his uncle, and Ben dealing with the intense bullying of Henry Bowers as well as being the new kid in school. One curious change from the novel was that in the book, as well as the original mini-series, Mike was the historian of the group and tells them of the background of Derry whereas that role was passed to Ben in the new movie. While I can see why they made the change within the context of the film (Ben, having no friends, retreats to the library in his spare time and starts reading up on the town). This robs Mike of having as much of a role in the film, reduced to providing the captive bolt gun from his family's farm, which isn't really a spoiler because any halfways saavy filmgoer knows as soon as it shows up in the beginning you damn well know it's going to be part of the finale. If they were going to make this change, I wish they in turn had found more for Mike to do, especially since he is the film's lone minority character.

Still, the newest rendition of Stephen King's classic novel is damn near perfect. The direction and writing are top notch and knows how to keep itself focused on these seven kids over the course of one terrifying summer. It stands amongst the best of Stephen King's adaptations, especially at times the fantastic Stand by Me, and is a film that I expect to see rise in stature as time goes by as both a great scary movie and just a great movie period. The film is filled with frights, some great laughs and a surprising amount of genuine emotion that snuck up on me. As the end title credit states, this is just Chapter One, with a Chapter Two now all but guaranteed to follow with the child characters as adults. I can only hope the filmmakers can craft a follow-up as good, if not better, as this one.