'IT' – Review

"Breathe..........just breathe.........you're a grown man. Why are you nervous?" – Before seeing IT.

"You know, I think I'll stay up for a little bit longer than normal. At least until the shaking stops" – After seeing IT.

The very first thought that I had as the credits rolled after IT was that this movie is going to mess some kids up. You know the kids I'm talking about because it was all of us at one point or another. Do you remember when you were younger and you watched a scary movie well before you were actually old enough to watch it? Seeing it gave you a rush of terror and excitement all at once as a result of watching the movie you weren't supposed to. Those are the kids I'm talking about. Because it will inevitably happen; kids too young will see this movie and it will mess them up for years eventually becoming a story they tell into their adulthood.

I know that ultimately has nothing to do with reviewing this movie, but what a great image! A passing of the torch if you will. I'm an adult and I can say with confidence that the movie got to me on some sort of level managing to tap into those same feelings I had in my childhood when sneakily watching a horror movie that was forbidden which is why I gravitated towards that imagery.

IT can be succinctly summed up as being an excellent film that messes with you on many levels as well as entertains you at the same time. The best example I can give of this is when you see a baby get scared and then immediately laugh as a reaction. IT does this to you on a grander scale. It scares you and then immediately grabs you and tells you everything's alright...at least until it makes you jump again. While no movie is flawless, I can honestly state that IT comes darn near close on delivering a perfect product. My only apprehension with that statement is that I'm afraid of it being an overreaction to wanting literally any film to be better than the lackluster films we've been fed so far this year. I don't think that is the case, but I could see where some might think it's perfect when it still manages to falter on some aspects, but overall is an amazing time at the theater.

I will refrain from going into the story because by now it has been written about ad nauseum, however I feel the need to focus on how well the writing team of Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, and Gary Dauberman carefully chose what needed to be included into the screenplay based off of Stephen King's 1000+ page novel. While choosing to differentiate itself from the 90s TV mini-series that featured both the adult and child versions of The Loser's Club, IT is solely based on the group of misfits living in 1988-89 Derry, MN. I admit this slightly threw me because I was fully expecting to see their adult counterparts at some point of the film and just thought their exclusion from the trailers was on purpose as not to reveal some of the plot, but I was kept wanting because the film's choice to feature just the children was a bold move that resulted in an excellent payoff of tone and emotion. If you are familiar with my previous writings, then you know good and well my disdain for most child actors, however, IT shows its excellence in casting by placing some of the best child actors I've seen in quite some time on screen and then asking them to carry the entire emotional weight of the film on their shoulders. They did that and more.

The acting was superb in this film. It felt real and grounded despite it being about a menacing apparition that feeds off of children's fear. From Bill's, Jaeden Lieberher, to Bill Skarsgård's, Pennywise, each actor managed to attribute to the larger collective experience by being able to transport you back to some portion of your own personal childhood, how you were with your friends, how you handled your parents, adversity, and fear to such perfection that you understood completely how they were feeling and how they naturally reacted to their situation. This sounds like something that shouldn't be mentioned in a review, but it was something that was achieved so effortlessly it caused the children's story to feel real and almost tangible. Mix that with Skarsgård's amazing depiction of the iconic Pennywise the dancing clown and the movie ascends to a place where it truly begins to influence your emotions (good or bad). And that is the root of what makes a movie great to me; it causes you to feel something.

The scary moments are plentiful for sure. Believe me, despite knowing some of them are coming because of having seen them in the trailers, it made no difference. I was still scared. My honest reaction was after an intense moment or scene I would quietly turn away and slowly breathe out a sigh of relief, which was hilarious even more so because I could actually hear the rest of the theater doing the exact same thing. I appreciated these moments all the more because they weren't the cheap scares that some "horror" films cash in on with impressionable audiences, but these were rooted in the place of nightmares that portrayed genuine terror and fear from these kids which the audience then understood and reacted to in turn. This was handled so well and was careful not to be overused that it made those moments even more poignant.

As I look back to the films that have been released so far this year, I cannot help but think that IT was one of the better ones and is easily in my TOP 10 for 2017 as of now. I don't anticipate it moving off of that list anytime in the near future as the Oscar push begins because as I make that list and think back to this movie I will be reminded of how it made me feel; both terrified and empathetic to innocence of being a child, what that felt like and how it is just a memory. If a film, especially a horror film, can transport you to that sort of place then in my opinion it must be trumpeted as being excellent. IT is a fantastic, disturbing and sometimes sad ride that plays on your emotions on interesting ways that I found to be addictive. I loved every minute of the build up, viewing, and aftermath of seeing this film and haven't felt that way about a movie in some time. I would recommend it to everyone, even those that might be too young to actually see it (wink).

IT– 5 GARYS