Here It Comes
For some reason, the city of Derry experiences the disappearance of several children every 27 years. When nightmarish clown, who only children can see, is suspected to be behind this, a group of rejects called “The Losers Club” decide to find a way to stop him.
The story concentrates solely on the this group of children as they face their fears head-on. Whether it’s facing bullies, social anxiety, or a shapeshifting demon, this ragtag group of kids band together to overcome it all. We follow them as their characters evolved in this coming-of-age film set in a horror film.
***Warning: Spoilers***
The horror didn’t take many cheap shots us as viewers. The genre has been populated with movies that make use of loud and sudden jump scares to make the audience jump. Although the scares were loud, the scenes were more just creep you out than scare. There weren’t many jumps, rather just creepy depictions of what scares us and the kids in the movie.
These scares ended up being formulaic by the time we got to the resolution. With several kids to go through, we learn about their daily problems, insert personal version of It, It attempts to kill them, if they live, they grow as characters, rinse repeat.
The rules of It were pretty unclear. I do understand that it is some sort of shape-shifting demon, but it can insert itself into pictures/tv, conjure acid/blood, make things float, etc., all while it and it’s machinations remain hidden from adults. For one thing, if he shows up every 27 years, how come he’s still around, 8 months after his first appearance in the movie. I guess that’s within a year, but the 2 separate times are set on different calendar years. Maybe he’s on the school or fiscal calendar?
That aside, Bill Skarsgard’s portrayal of Pennywise the Dancing Clown was mysterious and horrifying. With a combination of great special effects makeup and cgi, Pennywise was creepy, even when he was being nice… to then shortly brutally murder a kid.
It is a great revitalization of an older Stephen King novel/tv series. Scary, although formulaic, most people would enjoy this new take on the Clown demon. I’m interested in seeing the expansion of this universe with it’s already announced sequel.