It (Chapter One) Review

Well...I'm not much of a horror movie aficionado, tending to get scared by things lurking and popping out of the dark on screen, but I found It to be a creepy, spooky, thrill ride. This movie makes it really obvious where the Stranger Things showrunners got their inspiration from, because, at some points, this very well could have been an episode from that series.

Stephen King movies have a habit of being poorly realized on screen with the exceptions being, in no particular order, Shawshank Redemption, The Shining, Carrie, Stand By Me, Christine, Misery, and The Green Mile. Usually the movies are poorly acted, or the screenplays are poorly written; or the production values are embarrassingly low making the special effects garishly terrible. But not It. It gets it right on many levels, most notably the casting of the chid actors, and the production values. The interactions between the child actors seemed realistic, like they really had a friendly bond between them. There are well defined personalities, humor, angst, and awkwardness at just the right levels. And Peter Skarsgard does a fine job as a creepy and sinister Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

I won't spoil the movie for you, but suffice it to say that there are plenty of creepy, scary scenes involving Pennywise, and the special effects are so well integrated into the live action that they are genuinely frightening to behold. The movie is almost two hours long, but it flew by--and only covered the adolescent portion of the story. I guess they are saving the adult portion of the book for Chapter 2 coming out...in 27 years? I hope not!

I give this movie 👊🏽👊🏽👊🏽👊🏽👊🏻. There are some scenes of violence against clowns (Pennywise), children, teenagers, creepy, frightening imagery, and adolescent sexual situations.