by Kaiju_Ultra_Fan » Mon Oct 30, 2017 3:02 am
watched IT (2017) tonight. It wasn't bad. I was prepared to hate it but I actually thought it did a good job of being a decent horror movie.
It's funny right when I was thinking that this movie really reminds me of some of the early Nightmare on Elm Street movies, only with Pennywise instead of Freddy,..you see a movie marquee advertising A Nightmare on Elm Street 5.
The music, the pacing, the 'each kid having a nightmare based on his/her fear',...all very much felt like A Nightmare on Elm Street to me. It even mentioned him feeding on fear and not having power over you if you're not scared of him.
The CGI in the movie ranged from pretty decent to not very good, almost cartoonish. There's a scene in Bills garage where I thought Pennywise looked very cartoony and far too bright and well lite for being in a dark garage.
But then later there was another scene where Pennywises mouth keeps opening and opening revealing row after row of teeth and way down in his throat were lights (the Deadlights, if you've read the book),..and they hypnotized his victim,..I thought that was handled pretty well. Though there was absolutely no explanation of the deadlights or IT's origins, or The Turtle from the book. (though you do see a turtle made out of Lego earlier in the movie which I felt was a nod to the book. A bit of fan service to King fans I suppose.)
I did think the final showdown fight was slightly anti-climatic. And if you've read the book, there is no giant alien arachnid, it's just the clown shapeshifting between their fears. Though for a second there it did move around with giant spider/crab like legs which I guess is a nod to the book as well. But it happened very quickly as he shifted between forms during the attack.
It really felt like A Nightmare on Elm Street movie,..a good one. It held my interest through the entire 2 hours and 12 minutes, and the movie didn't feel overlong or drawn out, it moved quickly.
Sadly even at that run time there wasn't much time for any real characterization of the group. With that many kids (plus the bad kids, Henry Bowers, Patrick, the other two), there just wasn't time. I think if I hadn't read the book I might not have enjoyed the movie as much because I might've been more confused over who was who and what was going on.
But it felt pretty true to the book for the most part. And I can see that part 2 will be them as adults coming back to Derry to fight Pennywise again. Whereas the book bounces back and forth between the group as kids and the group as adults, they split the movies up so pt 1 is them as kids and pt 2 will be them as adults. Which I supposed is a pretty good idea.
Everyone said that this Pennywise wasn't as good as Tim Curry and that they relied too much on jump scares and horror movie cliches, but I'm not sure that's a fair comparison. Tim Curry had more screen time because it was a mini-series and not a movie. And while this 2017 Pennywise was definitely more of a movie monster,..that kind of is what he's supposed to be.
He had enough moments of banter and where you heard him talk that I thought the character was well represented. And there was odd contortionist type moments where I felt his body language, (or the CGI body language) was really something interesting that the original mini-series wasn't capable of doing at the time. One scene where he kind of twists and breaks and uncurls out of a refrigerator I thought was particularly interesting visually.
All in all I'd say if you liked the first 3 A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, and the general vibe of those movies, you'll probably like the 2017 version of IT as well. It's very similar in a lot of ways. From the 'nightmares' to the sink that gushes blood like Glens bed does in ANoES pt1, to the music and some of the sound effects and I guess even the 1980's setting, or the old creepy house in IT that's like Freddys house in the pt 3 dream world. There were a lot of similarities in my mind between this movie and the first 3 Nightmare movies, but in a good way. It got right what those early ANoES also got right in terms of mood and 'feel'.