It

[ChipNoir]

Isn't it every 30 years?

27-30 years. It's never precisely so. Also it's supposed to be 1989. Production of the film began in 2016.

I just got my hands on a studio draft script from 2014 and...hoooo boy. Where to begin.

Spoilers (depending on context)

1. All the character's iconic elements are just gone, or reduced to the most basic features. They've all become one dimensional.
* Bill is the leader because...he appears first. No stutter, no storytelling, no real reason for his being special in any way besides the fact that he has a personal grudge against IT and a guilt complex
*Stan's character is basically just Jewish, and about to become a man, and has squeemish issues about female nudity.
*Ben is fat...and just...fat. He doesn't even have the whole set up as an architect. The dam is glossed over very quickly.
*Bev has ...menstruation fears.
*Richie no longer does voices of any sort. He just sasses people a little more overtly. This is sort of drowned out because everyone has about equally the same poorly constructed sense of humor: Swearing and generic dialogue. Oh yes, there's swearing. Canned swearing.
*Eddie: Instead of an inhaler, he has a fake epi-pen. He also has a complete and total conflict resolution near the climax that has nothing to do with battery acid, and shows the writer's hand that they have no actual hope for a sequel.
Mike: Instead of a farm family. Mike's family run an abitoire, and there's a hamfisted metaphor in there about people not meant to be eaten, and such. The family vendetta between the Hamlins and Bowers is completely ommited, besides a very Modern Day Commentary where Mike is offhandedly accused
*Henry Bowers: Renamed Travis Bowers. Instead of being a year older, he's three years older, and is bad because...teenage hormones. Patrick has an obsession with fire. The other members of the gang, also all older, are nondescript. Travis's dad has been changed to the a deputy, and is greatly reduced in importance. Travis' entire motivation is that he wants his knife back. The fact that he targets the loser's club is a;most purely incidental. That and besides the exposition phase, there are virtually no other kids in the plot besides the loser's club.

And the biggest botch of all. Pennywise...Is just a killer clown. He reminds me of a low-grade rif of Freddy Krueger. He'll puppet around the occasional corpse, but otherwise remains in clown form the entire time. Instead of being a metaphor for the rotten elements of Derry, he has direct mind control over people.

The plot just...veers from scene to scene for the sake of either attempting to make these kids look like edgy rebels to suddenly remembering there's a source material. It even lifts narrative wording right into the script, like the writers lined up where the plot was, and copy/pasted passages. It hamfistedly plants quotes from the book before zooming off into more generic sequences. And yes, Pennywise is a sad, sad echo of the mini-series' attitude. It's pretty damned soul less.

The good news is this is indeed an early draft. Almost none of the imagery from the trailer is in this, though there are echoes of some of the changes. But whatever script they're running on now has at least clearly been sent back to be rewritten to include more of the spirit of the book.

Reading this has seriously damped my hype. I'm gonna keep my fingers cross that they release a trailer soon in june/july, and show marked improvements.

 

[Cthulhu]

IIRC they changed writers / directors a few times over the past X years, so er, yeah let's hope this was the shit one.

 

[ChipNoir]

IIRC they changed writers / directors a few times over the past X years, so er, yeah let's hope this was the shit one.

It troubles me though, that Bill still doesn't stutter in the teaser. I know it could just be a redub to make it flow, but I have other concerns. I'm not a fan of who they cast to be Richie Tozer either.

 

[Cthulhu]

At this point I'm bitter enough to think that if you want something done Right, you have to do it yourself - and expect to not get funding or the thing to tank beacause of ????? reasons.

 

[Channy]

Spoiler: My brother cosplaying new It

 

[ChipNoir]

http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3435981/second-trailer-highlights-new-losers-club/

Hype intensifying. I wish this was coming out in the summer, rather than september. I'll be stuck in school then, and there's a good chance the only theater for miles may not show this.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

X

 

[Clement Rage]

Much better trailer this time. Although, Pennywise should just be talking normally, the whole point of the clown form is to not scare away the prey.

 

[ChipNoir]

Much better trailer this time. Although, Pennywise should just be talking normally, the whole point of the clown form is to not scare away the prey.

He does freak Georgie out at first. Its right there in the book. But Pennywise does a 180 and lures him back in and BAM!

BUT YESSSSSS THIS IS WHAT I WANTED! SO MUCH WIN! SEPTEMBER HURRY UP!

 

[ChipNoir]

I got my hands on what seems to be the final draft script for IT, and its pretty damned good.

Looking foreward to September!

 

[Clement Rage]

Much better trailer this time. Although, Pennywise should just be talking normally, the whole point of the clown form is to not scare away the prey.

He does freak Georgie out at first. Its right there in the book. But Pennywise does a 180 and lures him back in and BAM!

BUT YESSSSSS THIS IS WHAT I WANTED! SO MUCH WIN! SEPTEMBER HURRY UP!

Yeah, but not by trying to be scary "HERE! TAKE IT!". Georgie is scared by glowing yellow eyes, and then the clown in the drain just says hi. Pennywise can't completely hide its nature, but it's not deliberately trying to scare them, it uses the monster forms for that.

 

[Octo]

Good trailer but I still think the Tim Curry Pennywise is scarier!

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Speaking of which, Tim Curry's Pennywise is actually in the room of clowns at the end of the trailer, just to the left:







X

 

[ChipNoir]

Holy. Fucking. Shit.
I don't think I've ever been so rewarded by hype. Everything that I hoped for and MORE culminated in this film. So now begins my spoilerfull review at the service of ANYONE who is holding back from seeing this due to skepticism of hype.
* * * * * *

Spoiler

This movie is quite possibly the most beautifully shot, strongly acted, and entertaining films in the fantasy horror genre since, well, Nightmare on Elm Street III. I know that's a highwater mark to use, but this feels like a spiritual successor to everything that movie set up.
So, points to touch on Direction/Cinematography/Music: Beautiful. Andrés Muschietti and Chung-hoon Chung combine together to create a vision of Derry Maine that feels like everything that every King book has tried to convey about Americana, but ultimately fails until now. This feels like the town, and it feels like the 80s. But it doesn't particularly scream it's time and place to point where it becomes distracting. What can be distraction however is the score, which while beautiful, can be a little overpowering at times.
Acting: The Loser's Club is amazingly well acted, with not too much focus on anyone character. Bill and Beverly take center stage however, being the best actors, and with a script that serves them the most. But the film leaves a lot of room for everyone else to shine, with perhaps Mike being the weakest, but only again because everything else outshines the reduced role he's given. Richie, Stan, Ben, and Eddie are wonderful comedians in their own right, with Motor Mouth Richie getting a lot of well earned yuks in, but Eddie's neurotic babbling can easily steal the scene at times.
Plot: This is what adaptations should strive for. The beats that needed by there for the film to be truly called "IT: Chapter One" are there. And that's what may partially keep this at a 9.5 for me. The core of the book's initial exposition is here, but it diverges at interesting points. Rather than being Universal Horror icons, IT uses core fears against the kids, in combination with specters of past events.
On that note, this movie is full to bursting with references to the book that are shown, not told. The water tower, the Paul Bunyon statue, the Canal Street, and many other references to locations and elements of the book that the film just doesn't have time to deal with.
The film makes a major departure from the book after Nebolt Street, in choosing to follow the three part Hollywood Act structure. The Loser's Club briefly disperse as they are split between Bill and Richie. Bill wants to return to finish Pennywise off, but Richie tries to flee, leading to a scuffle, and a falling out.
This may be a sticking point for a few people, as the film slows down for about 5-10 minutes, but kicks into high gear as Beverly fights off her father's rape attempt, only to then be snatched up by Pennywise as bait for the boys. It might be another sticking point to make her a damsel, but it actually flows back into place, and acts as a way to introduce us to the true nature of Pennywise with his Deadlights.
No, there is no spider, but we get a glimpse into the fact that Pennywise is a truly primal creature with layers that this film isn't willingly showing us. He's playing his game by ear, and ultimately is horrified in the climax to find that all his shapeshifting can't scare the kids, who corner him. He makes what looks like final parting words as he 'dissolves' away into a well that goes even deeper into the sewer. We of course know there's more to come.
Pennywise: Skarsgard chews scenery with all 10,000 of his teeth, to great effect. I'll take a moment to give this film the .5 ding that I can't ignore: The CGI does glare at times. There's no getting around it, you know when you're seeing a CGI effect. But the imagery they go for in the transformations is so uniquely affecting that I applaud the attempt. The true form under the clown makeup is the stuff of Lovecraftian nightmares, and IT does not hold back from beating the crap out of these kids, while gleefully mocking them the whole way. There are sequences in the scares that just could not, I repeat, COULD NOT be done without CGI, and they do try to use practical whenever possible. The blood sink scene is a sight to behold, for example.
Similarly, his other forms are...interesting. There are three other largely special effect driven creatures: The Lepper, The Headless Boy, and the Flute Woman. The creatures have a sort of Tim Burtony plasticky quality, that somehow manages to work. They have a fairy-tailish quality that fits with the fact that these are fears drawn from the children's imagination, and thus are more grotesque and luridly malformed, rather than being grizzly and covered in blood.
That aside, the movie does fall into familiar traps: Jittery camera movements, a few false scares, things that the Hollywood engine refuses to avoid using.
All in all, this is a really fucking strong movie with a LOT of heart, a lot of laughs, and a good number of both creeping dread moments and ambitious jump scares that try to do a bit more than your average ghost movie.
Other interesting notes *For those interested about the character of Patrick Hocksteder, he is not quite the sociopath that King described him to be. Instead, he gives off something of a pedophile (As much as a 15 year old can give off) and sadist coding. It's interesting that his death is at the hands of zombie children.
*There are few fears in the finale that heavily, heavily hint at where part II is going. Unexpectedly the Mummy and a few other forms are pulled out of Pennywise's bag of tricks in his final brawl with the kids. There's a lot of skips in time, especially when the group disbanded, where Part II can go in and fill in some blanks with further childhood encounters with IT and it's many forms. Hopefully they get a start, so that the actor don't age too far out of their parts.
*There is no stinger at the end, which I'm kinda glad for. For those wondering, they intend to have a finished script by January, and will move promptly into production once that's drafted. As I said earlier, it feels like they've already written and shot a lot of material that leaves openings for things like the history of Derry and why it's inhabitants are so strange to be investigated in Chapter II.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Everything ChipNoir said.

Seriously. I lack the time to be able to adequately gush about the film, but he basically took care of it. The film is AMAZING.

Super minor reference note:

Spoiler

I think that Georgie's LEGO construction in his room that gets dropped is meant to be a reference to It's enemy Maturin.

X

 

[ChipNoir]

Everything ChipNoir said.

Seriously. I lack the time to be able to adequately gush about the film, but he basically took care of it. The film is AMAZING.

Super minor reference note:

Spoiler

I think that Georgie's LEGO construction in his room that gets dropped is meant to be a reference to It's enemy Maturin.

X

Yeah, there are so many hints, that I just didn't have the energy to write them all. This movie is loaded with either what are at least easter eggs, or some masterful foreshadowing.

I really do wonder how far into part two they've written already.

 

[Octo]

Gonna hold off on reading. I still don't think penny-wise looks scary enough :/

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I feel strongly compelled to go rewatch it, and just try to absorb everything all over again. Also, glad you feel that way, Octo. I'm quite curious how you'll feel afterwards.

Edit: Some news about where they're at for a follow-up and just talk about the cast and other stuff: http://collider.com/it-movie-interview-seth-grahame-smith-david-katzenberg/





X

 

[ChipNoir]

Gonna hold off on reading. I still don't think penny-wise looks scary enough :/

If you want Pennywise to be scary, you're not gonna be happy with this movie. Scary isn't really the right word. Alarming and disturbing are the tones they go for.

The whole film has a dark fairy tale quality to it whenever it dives into supernatural. It's not quite real, but it's startlingly imaginative.

 

[Flare]

I was thinking about the design of It in this movie just the other day (random thought, I won't be watching this movie because I hate scary things ).
I think the reason this It seems less scary is because he looks scary. Hard to describe but, the It with the stupid red hair fluffed on on the side of his face in the older movie/series (whatever the fuck it was, thought it was just a movie), that really did look just like a normal clown. Until the sharp teeth shows but, yeah. He looked like a regular clown and that's what freaks you out the most.

This one already looks like a serial killer/creep in disguise, imo. No one would dress and do makeup like that as an ordinary clown at a fair or something!

 

[ChipNoir]

I was thinking about the design of It in this movie just the other day (random thought, I won't be watching this movie because I hate scary things ).
I think the reason this It seems less scary is because he looks scary. Hard to describe but, the It with the stupid red hair fluffed on on the side of his face in the older movie/series (whatever the fuck it was, thought it was just a movie), that really did look just like a normal clown. Until the sharp teeth shows but, yeah. He looked like a regular clown and that's what freaks you out the most.

This one already looks like a serial killer/creep in disguise, imo. No one would dress and do makeup like that as an ordinary clown at a fair or something!

That's just it. Like I said in my review, this creature is intentionally trying to be scary, and sometimes it misses the mark because it's such an absurdly primal and insane entity. That's why it excels at being creepy so much more. Pennywise is playing things by ear, and at one gets very visibly frustrated when he starts getting clap-back from the kids.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Also, I have no idea how I missed that the director, Andy Muschietti, also did Mama which was another horror film that I loved that absolutely excelled at being unnerving and creepy much more than scary.

Insofar as Pennywise, it's incredibly effective in the way Chip describes. I very much felt that Pennywise was more of a primal and terrifying shapeshifting entity who manifests and feeds on fear than I did in the original.

Spoiler

One of the most effective forms being the twisted flute-playing woman from the picture. Additionally, when It manifests from the projector screen, I was temporarily thrown off by it looking like a special effect, but then I immediately realized that it was absolutely what It would've looked like in that form. I also like that you only really get a glimpse of It's spider-like limbs once.

(Also, my only minor complaint would be that the fight with it is a little bit shaky and quick-cutting, but I feel that it's overall forgiveable)

On a different note:

Spoiler

I thought it was really interesting how Bev's dad literally couldn't see the blood that was all over, and it makes It's influence on the older townsfolk more apparent (like the older couple who ignore Ben getting attacked). It makes me REALLY curios about Eddie's mom though, since she seems to be aware that something terrifying is out there and is trying to actively protect him from it was the Placebos/Gazebos that he's always taking.

X

 

[ChipNoir]

Also, I have no idea how I missed that the director, Andy Muschietti, also did Mama which was another horror film that I loved that absolutely excelled at being unnerving and creepy much more than scary.

Insofar as Pennywise, it's incredibly effective in the way Chip describes. I very much felt that Pennywise was more of a primal and terrifying shapeshifting entity who manifests and feeds on fear than I did in the original.

Spoiler

One of the most effective forms being the twisted flute-playing woman from the picture. Additionally, when It manifests from the projector screen, I was temporarily thrown off by it looking like a special effect, but then I immediately realized that it was absolutely what It would've looked like in that form. I also like that you only really get a glimpse of It's spider-like limbs once.

(Also, my only minor complaint would be that the fight with it is a little bit shaky and quick-cutting, but I feel that it's overall forgiveable)

On a different note:

Spoiler

I thought it was really interesting how Bev's dad literally couldn't see the blood that was all over, and it makes It's influence on the older townsfolk more apparent (like the older couple who ignore Ben getting attacked). It makes me REALLY curios about Eddie's mom though, since she seems to be aware that something terrifying is out there and is trying to actively protect him from it was the Placebos/Gazebos that he's always taking.

X

It ...could be read that way, but I think Mrs.K is just like the others. What IT does it enhances the adult's fears and sorrows to the point where they start becoming self destructive. Eddie's dad died of cancer in the book, and Eddie himself got extremely sick as a child. Ever since, his mom has been terrified of Eddie really being sick, so she becomes toxically protective. IT enhances that to the point where she feeds off the bond she's formed, addicted to being the most important person in Eddie's life, and the control she has.

The movie could have been a little more clear about what IT does, yeah. But I feel like there's a fine balance in maintaining the rule of Show, Don't Tell, and I'd much rather let some people be left a little mystified or confused than have the film waste it's precious time on obvious dialogue.

Spoiler

I loved Flute Woman. I feel like she was an interesting attempt at portraying the fear an OCD person has.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

It ...could be read that way, but I think Mrs.K is just like the others. What IT does it enhances the adult's fears and sorrows to the point where they start becoming self destructive. Eddie's dad died of cancer in the book, and Eddie himself got extremely sick as a child. Ever since, his mom has been terrified of Eddie really being sick, so she becomes toxically protective. IT enhances that to the point where she feeds off the bond she's formed, addicted to being the most important person in Eddie's life, and the control she has.

The movie could have been a little more clear about what IT does, yeah. But I feel like there's a fine balance in maintaining the rule of Show, Don't Tell, and I'd much rather let some people be left a little mystified or confused than have the film waste it's precious time on obvious dialogue.

Spoiler

I loved Flute Woman. I feel like she was an interesting attempt at portraying the fear an OCD person has.

Addressing those points, along with some other things that I really loved:

Spoiler

• In the opening, how it cuts and shows that it's their mom playing the creepy background piano music. SO smoothly executed.
• I love that everything that IT writes with its own blood, it's always flowing upwards. I think the first time you see it is in the mini doll coffin in the wellhouse.
• Additionally, the TV show that IT controls in the background that's always playing when the parents are around, but they just don't pay any attention to it whatsoever was a really good way of showing IT's influence over the town in ways that the kids are often actively aware of, and the adults never respond to.

Good points about Mrs. K. I've never read the book, but that makes a lot of sense as a background. I figure that we'll start to get a better understanding of just how thoroughly IT really controls the town in the sequel since we'll have a lot better opportunity to show the things that they all have to struggle with as adults.

It'll also be interesting to see how much, if at all, they utilize the child actors, since in that interview they mentioned that a few of them have already grown a bunch, and their voices have changed even just over the course of filming, let alone between the gap that a sequel would take place over.

X

 

[ChipNoir]

I think you can use a little CGI and camera trickery to age the characters back down for some sequences. They did also mention they did a little extra shooting just in case this become a problem. But yeah, Jack (Eddie) has shot up like a beansprout in the press material. Dude's gonna be a heart breaker in another decade. He's got that Tom Cruise vibe waiting to happen once he grows into himself. Same kinda energy too.