IT

Stars: Jaeden Lieberher. Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Olef, Nicholas Hamilton, Jackson Robert Scott, Owen Teague, Logan Thompson, Jake Sims and Bill Skarsgård.
Writers: Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman; based on the novel by Stephen King.
Director: Andy Muschietti.

Rating: 4/5

The new millenial obsession with all things 80s may have reached its zenith with Andy Muschietti’s spectacularly terrifying and terrifically satisfying retro-riff on Stephen King’s bestseller, It. Condensing the source material’s mammoth narrative into a workable 135 minute film has taken some lithe restructuring, yet what remains is a lovingly faithful rendering of the themes, characters and milieu of the landmark horror tome. And, for all the warm familiarity and unexpected sweetness conjured by the production’s adherence to nostalgia, ‘horror’ it most certainly is.

Muschietti leaves no one guessing just how horrifying his adaptation will be with a rain-soaked opening setpiece that perfectly visualises King’s unforgettable first pages. Drawing upon his origins as a short-form horror visionary (his 2013 feature debut, Mama, was a reworking of his own 2008 mini-movie), the director’s masterly pre-title sequence could stand alone, called ‘The Taking of Georgie Denborough by Pennywise the Clown’. As both a tone-setter for the frights to come and an introduction to King’s most iconic horror figure, it is the ideal primer.

Act 1 jumps several months ahead to the final day of the school year, the thrill of summer vacation tempered by a town on edge; a curfew keeps the children indoors after dark, so prevalent is the threat of unexplained disappearance. A tightly packaged and deftly handled piece of scripting brings to vivid life the friends who call themselves The Losers Club. Georgie’s older brother, stutterer Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) is coping with his grief by surrounding himself with best buds, including momma’s boy Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer), nerdish Stanley (Wyatt Oleff) and bespectacled Richie (Finn Wolfhard, stealing every scene). This group of under-the-radar types spend their days dodging bully Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton, channelling a young Kevin Bacon) and firing off coarse insults about each other’s mothers (the other 80s King property It most resembles is Stand By Me). Soon joining the group are fellow outsiders, big-boned history buff Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor), orphaned Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs) and the older but no less alone alone Beverly Marsh (the film’s breakout star, Sophia Lillis).

A key theme in much of King’s oeuvre is facing and overcoming that which you fear the most, and each of the group must contend with grotesque manifestations of what haunt their young psyches. Muschietti proves his mettle in this regard; it is no small accomplishment that, in a film that features so grotesque a representation of terror as Pennywise, a whole series of equally nightmarish creations populate the screen. Of all in the group, it is Beverly’s pubescent transformation into womanhood (and her implied abuse by a lecherous father) that carries with it the most profoundly disturbing and ultimately moving challenge to overcome.

Capturing the decade extends beyond the precise costuming, hairstyles and production design flourishes. Muschietti adopts a strong stylistic adherence to 80s cinema, employing that most Spielberg-ian of camera movements, the ‘dolly-in close-up’. A memorable sequence involving a slide projector evokes specific memories of the Spielberg-produced/Dante-directed Gremlins; The Goonies is another Spielberg production that courses through this film’s DNA. Veteran South Korean DOP Chung-hoon Chung tones down the overtly 'cinematic' richness of some of his most acclaimed work (Oldboy, 2003; Lady Vengeance, 2005; Stoker, 2013; The Handmaiden, 2016), only employing his consummate skill with colour, shadow and movement when the film earns that indulgence. The result is a film that draws a distinctively well-defined line between the bright warmth of a summer friendship and the otherworldly void of the supernatural. 

After the very public casting (and recasting) of the role made famous by Tim Curry, the burning question is how the relatively unknown actor Bill Skarsgård (son of Stellan) cuts it as one of the purest visions of supernatural evil in modern literature. With one pupil cocked askew and a stalagmite of spittle heading south from his pursed, crimson lips, Skarsgård’s Pennywise recalls both Freddy Krueger and, somewhat unexpectedly, ‘Ed’, the most unhinged hench-hyena from The Lion King. Under the prosthetics and grease paint (and occasional CGI enhancement), Skarsgård goes to hell and back to craft a truly malevolent creation, utterly believable as the black soul of King’s cursed small town.