It misses the mark for horror

Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise in It. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

For a fair portion of the opening sequence of It director Andy Muschietti locks in on the little fears of childhood. The creepy basement with little lighting, the empty streets, the things that lurk in the sewers. The sequence is a little disturbing, at least until the nefarious evil spirit Pennywise chomps a child’s arm off before dragging him off into the sewer. The build up falls asunder once the poorly rendered violence is shown on screen, and the movie never regains the opening sense of dread.

The quality of the horror in It depends greatly on how the eponymous supernatural being is employed and the performance of the actor in the role. As a creature that manifests itself in the form of a clown, Pennywise is a monster who has a need to torment his victims before consuming their souls and flesh. There's a lot of Freddy Krueger in Pennywise – using fear as a means of justifying their existence – although the clown has a bit more playfulness in his cruelty than Freddy, a friendliness to the menace that can put a child at ease for a moment or two. This Pennywise, played by Bill Skarsgard, is missing that puckishness and hints of misleading kindness. His malevolent intentions are never hidden underneath a facade of joy; he’s simply evil, which is a bit dull for a creature that spends so much time messing with the minds of children. Skarsgard tries too hard to be the scary manifestation of a clown without making the audience feel uncomfortable around him. Nothing offsets the attempts at terror, most of which are ineffective anyway, to offer a balance between general clown behavior and embodiment of humanity's fears.

While Skarsgard doesn't play up the character's designed hamminess, the movie provides few opportunities to allow the character to be creepy either, showing several of his nastier acts instead of implying the pain Pennywise inflicts. Once Pennywise bites that child’s arm off the audience effectively loses the possibilities of the potential horrors. All of the awful things Pennywise could and would do to a child, is negated by showing exactly what he'll do. Horror by implication can be much more effective than horror depicted on screen, especially for a movie with lackluster CGI like It.

A lot of the problems with this movie can be pinned on the atrocious script. It can be painful to watch because of random tonal shifts – a blood cleaning montage comes to mind – that undermine the horror atmosphere. Some of the decisions made are baffling, including repeated scenes in which the kids just keep running off on their own despite clear evidence doing so is a very, very bad idea. Horror has some lenience when it comes to the idiot plot – scary situations can justify some moronic behaviors – but It crosses the line between realistic stupidity and cinematic stupidity egregiously. A couple of choices make it seem as if the writers felt some sense of fealty to the original novel’s writer Stephen King, including padding out the run time to push what should be a sub two-hour movie into a two-and-a-quarter-hour slog. There’s also the less than stellar choice to have the most interesting character, Sophia Lillis' Beverly Marsh, be the victim of incest, get kidnapped by Pennywise, and put under a spell to eventually get the Sleeping Beauty treatment/get sexually assaulted.

Lillis though is pretty great as Beverly, as are the rest of the child actors (Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Wyatt Oleff) that form the circle of friends fighting against Pennywise. Their interactions in the moments between supernatural attacks are fun and engaging, reflecting the awkward period between childhood and the early teen years. Even their obnoxious moments are realistic and pretty funny thanks to Wolfhard's delivery and the retorts volleyed back by Oleff. As a coming of age story It could be pretty good with this cast and better writing.

The ultimate failures in horror though serve as the ultimate let down for It. The scenes with the kids being kids build the bond they have and establish those characters as likable and at least worth rooting for. But there’s still the need for terror, to put those kids into situations beyond their control. Even with an immortal creature that dresses like a clown and eats children, It misses the mark so much viewers won’t have to keep the lights on to go to sleep at night.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 135 Minutes

Genre: Horror

Ask Away

Target audience: Stephen King acolytes and viewers who aren't completely averse to clowns.

Take the whole family?: Considering a kid gets his arm bitten off by a clown, and the presence of more than one clown, stick close to the rating.

Theater or Netflix?: This one might play better at home in the dark without an audience mocking it.

What do you think of clowns?: I'm pretty horrified by them. The idea of the artificial smile obscuring true emotions bothers me on many levels, as does the overly friendly behavior and the buffoonish antics. The scariest part of the entire film was the reminder that a man dressed as a clown was just four rows behind me the entire time, at least as far as I knew.

Watch this instead?: The first half of the 1990 miniseries It is at least OK, highlighted by Tim Curry's insanely effective turn as Pennywise. The newer version shares a lot with a show that hits hard on the 1980s vibe and horror, Stranger Things.