[DarkeningHumour]

I don't know of anyone in my life having read the book. I don't know what its public is in the US, but It, as a cultural object, be it on paper form or on the screen, is not part of the cultural conversation in any place I've lived in. In fact, Stephen King as a whole, as far as I've seen, is pretty much ignored, with some odd exceptions like Kubrick's Shining.

I had to google the gangbang scene. It is amazing to me that anyone would ever write that into a book about children, whatever the underlining themes. Was King already doing coke at this time? Was this sort of thing more palatable when the book was published?

One of the articles I read on the subject talked more broadly about Bev and some of the things it said were baffling to me. I agree that the damsel in distress thing is unfortunate, especially given that it doesn't play that way in the book and the previous script for the movie. Aside from that though, her character was solid. She's a strong kid dealing with her burgeoning sexuality and when her father oggles her the movie is clearly calling him a creep. It seemed to me the writer couldn't make the distinction between a character with sexuality and a character reduced to her sexuality. (Also, does someone really have to connect the dots for you in that bathroom blood scene?)

[smirnoff]

The screeplay from the final act of the film:

"Okay guys let's all go in together"
2 seconds pass
"Uh guys, where's Ritchie?"
"RITCHIE!"
"RITCHIE WHERE ARE YOU!"
Ritchie has an ordeal, then they find Ritchie.
"Ritchie are you okay?"
"Yea"
"Okay lets keep going"
"Uh guys, where's Ben?"
"BEN!"
"BEN WHERE ARE YOU!"
Ben has an ordeal, then they find Ben.
"Okay lets keep going"
"Ugh guys where's Bev?"
and so on.

I swear to god, that kid with all the pills says "Uh guys... where's so-and-so" like four times in 10 minutes!

I would say that was the only thing that bothered me... how quickly, easily, and frequently they would get separated. Like god damn, a giant clown face just jumped out of a projector and almost ate you, and you're going to wander off from your group in a spooky house? It got to the point where I felt like it needed to be addressed. Like a character should've blurted out something in frustration over it. But because the film didn't acknowledge it, it made it seem like the writers, and by extension the characters, were unaware of the pattern... which is why I look at it as a weak point. It didn't pull me right out , but it was there. And seemed so easy to fix.

God damn there's some scares in this. I had many heart attacks. The arms on my sofa are permanently misshapen. Knowing a thing was coming did not help, because you didn't know how it would look. And it was always unnerving, if not downright terrifying. I mean the way Pennywise ran at people... fffffffffffffffffuuuuuu. And Pennywise himself... that was some Ledger-Joker-esque level stuff, in terms of being wild and unsettling and yet not being able to look away. That was like a new level of menacing for me. I don't have a thing about clowns, which is why I was brave enough to watch this, but if you did RIP.

This wins for knowing how to make things move in creepy ways. And those close calls... I would just shake my head for like a minute afterwards. Too intense. This is some movie... some story! I didn't know and IT stuff before watching it.

[DarkeningHumour]

I found that the first Pennywise scene was the only one where Skarsgard got to actually act and be unsettling without use of CGI. None of the later scenes match what he does with his inflection there.

Also, I recently watched clips of the miniseries, and I don't like Tim Curry's performance at all. I don't find him creepy or even unusual in the least. He's just doing a deep, grating voice.

[IDrinkYourMilkshake]

I re-watched the miniseries recently, and it (i.e. IT (i.e. the miniseries based on the book)) is just, just awful. Although I confess I do kinda like Tim Curry as Pennywise.

I can't say I was all that scared by this. Why doesn't Pennywise just kill them? He's gone through history killing all these kids, and all of a sudden he's just gonna decide, out of the f*****g blue, to tease this lot? Is he hungry or not? Predators don't come out of hibernation to play games.

This film, as well as the glut of other 'horror' movies over the last few years, have made me think about what it is that constitutes a 'scary' film. I don't think a whole bunch of jump cuts do it, because it's the cinematic equivalent of hiding behind a door and shout BOO! when someone walks in the room. Lowest common demoninator, really. Also, a bunch of scary faces don't cut it either, because my brain just goes "ooooh - look what they've done with their computers!" And a scary face is nothing without actions to match it. Look at Socrates, for example. Ugly as sin, by all accounts, but not a bad guy, when all is said and done. On the other hand, look at Ted Bundy. He was, by any standard, a handsome man... yet he was quite literally a devil with the ladies.

I know this is a horror and not a melodrama, but I though it was at its best when it focused on the themes, through the relationships between the kids - 'the only thing to fear is fear itself', 'togetherness conquering fear'... all that stuff - it is a potentially powerful social point to be made. The creepiest moment in this movie is the library scene, precisely because it doesnt rely on jump cuts and jarring dissonant sound, and it is much, much more unsettling for it.

A film like My Friend Dahmer is a hundred times creepier than a film like IT, because, well... real! Pennywise has nothing on Jeff. Pennywise does what he does for survival - he is to human kids what a bear is to a salmon. Jeffrey Dahmer did it for sport.

[karlwinslow]

I can't say I was all that scared by this. Why doesn't Pennywise just kill them? He's gone through history killing all these kids, and all of a sudden he's just gonna decide, out of the f*****g blue, to tease this lot? Is he hungry or not? Predators don't come out of hibernation to play games.

This is teased out better in the book, although I think they mention it in the movie (it's been a while), but Pennywise feeds off of their fear. So the whole point of those elaborate scaring scenes is to evoke the maximum amount of fear out the kids.

Then he eats them.

[Junior]

I liked Chapter 2 but definitely not as much as Chapter 1. I think there were a lot of problems that almost all boil down to the changed structure from the book. The long sequence of solo scenes in this might not have felt as onerous had they been interspersed with scenes of the characters together as kids. And the abominable Bowers stuff would have at least had some resonance with the stuff he did in the first movie.

Really, though, this movie isn't long enough. It gives just enough hints at things that get much more play in the book that it got by (for me) without having to actually do the things it was referencing, but I would have preferred if it had the space to actually do those things. The characters feel more like sketches than anything else.

What did really work for me was the scares. I liked the phantasmagorical nature of the creatures and I thought the jump scares were effectively used. There's enough build up, usually, to justify the jump.

Mostly, though, I wanted to see the giant CINECAST!ing turtle that carries the world on its back.

[1SO]

I remember very few creatures in the first film outside of Pennywise. Chapter 2 has more of them and they're some of the worst CG, on the level of the Aladdin superbowl trailer. The ones in the Chinese restaurant just made a complete WTF out of the scene, but the old lady... That is made even worse because except for a few cutaways to dramatic moments it follows the lengthy, intense first teaser. Where the teaser ends, the film cuts to some eight-foot momo out of a video game. It's a shocking edit, but the moment my eyes take in what I'm seeing I start questioning it in a Scorpion King way. (It's not that bad, but it breaks the tone that severely.)