It’s no secret this was Hollywood’s weakest summer at the box office in more than a decade – down almost 15% from last year. Yeah, that’s pretty scary, alright. But not nearly as scary as the welcome arrival of director Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of Stephen King’s It, which slammed the door on summer with a colossal $123 million opening weekend – the 3rd biggest opening of the year, trailing only Beauty and the Beast and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – yep,it even walloped Spider-Man: Homecoming. It’s a terrific horror picture – which I’ll get to in a moment – and while it’s devouring the box office, It’s also delivering some very potent lessons: the horror genre is incredibly profitable – and so are R-rated films. It is rated R and earned a 51% female audience opening weekend – chew on that. Also, It features a cast of unknowns – the marquee value here is Stephen King, who still carries massive appeal, when a movie bearing his name delivers the goods, which The Dark Tower didn’t. Despite that picture tanking, it didn’t taint King’s name value in the slightest. What audiences care about is if the movie is a good experience or not – and oh, baby, is It an experience.
First filmed as a miniseries in 1990, It planted itself into the pop culture firmament thanks in large part to Tim Curry’s unhinged portrayal of Pennywise the Clown, which freaked out more than a couple of generations thanks to home video, and left a Mt. Everest-like challenge for any actor who’d dare to try and fill that character’s clown shoes – how do you top that?!
The good news is that Muschietti (with screenwriters Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman) have stayed pretty faithful to King’s source material while keeping things feeling fresh and new. Where the original miniseries followed the novel by jumping back and forth between the characters as adolescents and adults (27 years later), It focuses solely on the kids of the story as they first discover what an evil, messed up place the town of Derry is. And that’s not just because of Pennywise. All the kids (who dub themselves “The Losers Club”) have it pretty rough: Stuttering, chronic health problems, being the only minority – being the fat kid. Like The Goonies or the kids in
King’s own Stand By Me, these characters are just trying to get through their early teens – but in addition to being badgered by a truly despicable gang of older kids, it’s the adults in their world that are some of the most terrifying parts of their lives. A key presence in the Losers Club is Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis), a disruptive presence in their world, both alien and hypnotic – she’s a girl. Beverly’s been tagged with an undeserved bad reputation at school, while trying to avoid the skin-crawling advances of her own father – she’s an outcast, so a perfect candidate to join the other young Derry misfits. It’s unsettling that Beverly’s the target of an incestuous pedophile while the filmmakers
King’s own Stand By Me, these characters are just trying to get through their early teens – but in addition to being badgered by a truly despicable gang of older kids, it’s the adults in their world that are some of the most terrifying parts of their lives. A key presence in the Losers Club is Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis), a disruptive presence in their world, both alien and hypnotic – she’s a girl. Beverly’s been tagged with an undeserved bad reputation at school, while trying to avoid the skin-crawling advances of her own father – she’s an outcast, so a perfect candidate to join the other young Derry misfits. It’s unsettling that Beverly’s the target of an incestuous pedophile while the filmmakers
deliberately make her a sexualized presence. But thanks to Lillis’ performance, it’s never cheap or sensational – despite walking right up to that line. It’s a star-making performance, and Beverly is practically the main character in this version of the story.
The film stunningly depicts the iconic opening of little Georgie Denbrough losing his paper boat into a sewer opening, where we first meet Pennywise, in a sequence that’s even more upsetting than I was prepared for, and unforgettably sets the tone for where we’re going. Georgie’s disappearance haunts his grief (and guilt)-stricken older brother Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) with incredible sadness. All the young actors in It are fantastic, but Lieberher deserves special notice, as his depiction of someone trying to build courage out of shattered heartache is really compelling.
Muschietti updates the original’s late 1950’s setting to the 1980’s (the novel was published in 1986), which gives the story a crazy, serendipitous kinship with Stranger Things, which itself felt wildly inspired by It (they share one cast member, Finn Wolfhard). It’s as if there were suddenly a Stranger Things feature film in theaters, but that’s just good timing, because the filmmaking and sense of place and character in It is entirely unique – as is this new version of Pennywise, performed by Bill Skarsgård. We learn that this isn’t the first era that this evil presence has haunted the town of Derry, and Pennywise is dressed here in turn-of-the-century clown garb, with aging lace and frills. Skarsgård makes the character entirely his own, which looks like it was incredibly painful to inhabit. Pennywise is beyond disturbing, and what visual effects there are in no way upstage the dark insanity that comes from the craft of acting. Skarsgård’s a real original, and hard to shake.
Muschietti (Mama), abetted by Oldboy DP Chung-hoon Chung’s stunning cinematography, puts together a ravishingly dark and involving series of sequences that engage the audience so deftly, I was reminded of Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist. You’re in the grip of a master manipulator (that’s a compliment) who knows that scares work best when you’ve come to powerfully care for the characters. It’s easy to see why It is doing so well at the box office.
If there’s one bit of mysterious disservice, it’s to the character of Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs), who becomes the bookish town librarian in the novel, and who I remember being the one who did all the research into Derry’s past. Here, he’s less the intellectual and is forced to work in a slaughterhouse, which feels a lot more dated and stereotypical. But Jacobs is awesome, and you’re with him every inch of the way – it just feels like a shame and a step backward.
We’ll be returning to Derry in the “adult” version, 27 years later, with new actors bringing us the sequel. For the life of me, I hope they cast unknowns, because it’s already a tall order to make a film as enthralling as this one, where you’ve got the vulnerability of children being such a potent driver for the audience. But Muschietti and Skarsgård have more than proven their chops at overcoming
difficult challenges, so it’s going to be fascinating to see how they tackle it. It is one of the strongest horror movies of the last few years, and easily one of the best Stephen King adaptations. Given
its current domination of the box office, Pennywise and his red balloons aren’t going anywhere but up.
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