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So yeah, It is very good. Obviously the scares are terrible and ineffective, but the relationship between the Losers is really great and shines during the horror parts of the film. It doesn't feel long at all either. I'm looking forward to Chapter Two very much. 9/10 | A-

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Liked the relationship between the friends and thought they sold the brother dynamic perfectly but overall wasn't that impressed. The set pieces weren't frightening and it was missing a sense of intensity, it didn't ramp up the scariness at all. Would give it a C. 

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Am I the only one that thinks Beverly looks just like Pennywise. Like they are TWINS.

 

 

Anyways solid all the way around. Great casting. Fantastic Soundtrack, Good cinematography.

 

Tonally it jumped around too much, from scare to fun, starting and stoping. Like the Bathroom, they see its blood, but then they clean it to 80's music for us to have fun! but why? it throws the mood, the pace off, and adds nothing to the story.

 

Also we see Pennywise in old photos throughout towns history but its never clear if the kids notice. It seems like its just an audience thing. Wish they mentioned it or found out.

 

Not a fan of the Bully subplot, its always hard to pull off but it feels a bit cheesy. But mainly I don't get the point of it... Why does Penny wise encourage him to kill? He's a monster who's hungry. He wants to eat kids. How does convincing a kid to just kill people help his plan or goal at all?

 

The ending fight against IT was little too dark and way to shaky. action wasn't too well shot, it just jumped/cut around did the shake blurry mid body shot thing.

 

 

I feel like there was tons of details every where though. I feel like I missed a lot of stuff in the background of shots, excited to get the blu ray for this one.

 

B (85)

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Pennywise uses Henry to try to heal the kids and break their power. This was explained in great detail in the book. So I can understand why it didn't come across very clear in the movie.

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Saw IT again Wednesday night (before that awful mother! experience) and enjoyed it a lot more away from my sky high expectations. This film has amazing rewatchability and a lot of the problems that I had initially didn't bother me as much this time around (the kids actually did seem shaken after the main set pieces and never really changed character, not sure why I missed that Thursday night - that third act jump also didn't feel as forced - but one of the other kids really should have had Stan's emotional line there, he didn't even go in the house).
 

The acting from every one of the kids is so freaking good but I particularly loved Sophia Lillis. She was like a young Amy Adams and is bound to become an iconic horror heroine.
 

Bill Skarsgard absolutely kills it as Pennywise. He wisely strays from imitating Tim Curry and his adaptation of this creature is a lot more sinister. I wish the film gave him more dialogue to work with but he makes full use out of any screen time that he's given. If you go into this thinking that the trailers have given away many key scenes....you are in for a nice surprise (that's how you do it Hollywood). And I definitely got shades of Heath Ledger's Joker from him.
 

The film itself has this throwback feel to it right from the opening credits and the cinematography and score are phenomenal. The CGI is a bit too noticeable in areas and two of the kids in The Losers Club feel less developed than the others but that's really about it for flaws. 
 

Was I ever scared? No, but horror films very rarely phase me anymore.
 

I mean yeah, the film relies a lot on loud noises for scares (along with unsettling imagery) but these scenes usually build into something. It's not like the Insidious, Conjuring, Annabelle, etc. films where there's long moments of silence followed by a predictable BOO! (rinse and repeat for 90 minutes). And the few jump scares actually make sense in the context of this universe, because Pennywises whole goal is to scare the kids because their fear makes them more appetizing. And man does this thing love fucking with them. Like a lot.
 

Fun note: If you are going to see this (or again) pay attention to the background of the book scene in the library.
 

This film is like Steven Spielberg meets A Nightmare On Elm Street and certain scenes reminded me of what that remake could have been had it actually lived up to it's potential. And yes, if you love Stranger Things then you're probably going to have a lot of fun in this. If you're not a horror fan, the films far from falling in just that category and has a ton of the same wise cracking humor from the Scream series. But what really keeps the audience invested are the emotional stakes and IT largely succeeds in this area due to the kids.
 

Overall, there are so many memorable scenes that any flaws IT may have are far outweighed by the positives. Incredibly stoked to see that it's such a massive success in a sea of "save the world" super hero tent poles and hope this is a good sign going forward for horror. - A-

Edited by somebody85
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Didn't expect much but aside from corny moments (whenever the camera sexualizes Beverly through the male characters POV) and some kid characters are less dwelled upon to the point of feeling minor even if they're supposed to be part of the Losers (And I don't quite get what was Ritchie's specific fear, clowns? It didn't felt intimate and personal like the others), director Andy Muschetti is pretty adept at setting up a creepy and chilling atmosphere through cinematography and production design, illustrating children's terror from their POV. Music does the job. Most jumpscares were pretty riveting on me (took me back to the early nineties when IT scared the shit out of little Dash, I like how childhood nostalgia is intimately painted as something as dreadful as dreamy thing, thankful to have survive mine into adulthood without much harm and trauma).

 

As the movie showcases, the object of fear is subjective but Fear is an universal human feeling, Pennywise was disturbingly unnerving and at times scary. Not an easy task for Bill Skarsgard who I misjudged as too goofy from pre-release stills but he manages to do his own thing living up to Curry's performance, especially through stature, body language, speech modulations and VFX enhancements. (All parents and surrounding adults were creepy though, I don't even want to know what Halloween feels like there as an adult, let alone as a child ).

 

I'm not really excited for the adult part, it was always the weakest part of the story, at least not as scary as the childhood part, imo. I'm wondering what was different from Fukanaga's original take that he jumped off the ship.

 

(I love how the fact that they remade this 27 years after the TV series imitates the cyclical killing spree of the fiction's monster. IT is a cyclical pop culture boogeyman that feed and prey on whole generation of children that get on to live as adults then having children experiencing it too on and on passing down, iterations after iterations as Fear never really dies, it just lingers and disappears lurking in the shadows when you tamed it to prey on someone's else at any given weakening times. The perfect remake fodder).

 

A-.

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Finally saw this. It's really good. Better than the miniseries, for sure. Can't say I ever found it scary (creepiest scene is the opening encounter between Georgie and Pennywise), but it's really well-made and funny and uses the late 80's setting well. Biggest props belong to the casting: I thought all of the child actors here were wonderful and completely natural (definitely see the Amy Adams comparisons re: Sophia Lillis), while Bill Skarsgard is a great Pennywise that is almost as good as Tim Curry's. I thought some of the jump scares felt forced, and it did feel a bit long at times. Still, very much looking forward to Chapter 2. B+

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It's a pretty good movie: it's easy to see why so many people really like it. I wouldn't say it's scary (it's hard to scare me though) but it's very well-made and I enjoyed the character dynamics a lot. I do have a couple quibbles:

 

[*] The bullying sub-plot could have had a way better pay-off. I feel like Ben should have been the one to kill the bully in the end: he got the worst of the bullying and he was a real underdog you wanted to root for. Whatever the case, it needed a better pay-off.

[*] The back-to-back scenes where the bully kills his dad and Beverly then kills her dad...maybe a scene in between would have helped. Kinda distracted me that they did it back-to-back.

 

B+

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It is fun. That's the main thing to the movie. It might not be scary, and it has some disappointingly underdeveloped characters and subplots, but the whole movie engages for the long runtime and its just a joy to watch. Very idiosyncratic humor populates the film, and the ensemble of kids is uniformly great. Skarsgard's Pennywise is terrifying in a spectacular way, relishing every moment with pure delight. Muschietti directs the setpieces well enough, and Chung's cinematography is downright gorgeous. Really, there's not much to really say about It. It's a very pleasing film, a haunted house ride with memorable characters and wonderfully silly scares. A satisfying horror blockbuster for Fall 2017. B

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On 9/12/2017 at 0:42 AM, Stutterng baumer Denbrough said:

 

IT was written 30 years ago.  Stranger Things did not do it first, or better.

I really wanted to say that too.  Luckily someone already had.

 

I've seen a lot of people comparing IT to Stranger Things as though Stranger Things was somehow responsible for IT.  But it wasn't even responsible for the new release considering it was in production already before ST was released.

 

Also count me among the people who think there wasn't a lot of 'unnecessary' content in the book.  There's some of King's works that really do feel longer than need be (the unabridged version of the Stand slows down a lot at certain parts) but IT, to me, has always been a gripping read all the way through.

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4 hours ago, Sal said:

I really wanted to say that too.  Luckily someone already had.

 

I've seen a lot of people comparing IT to Stranger Things as though Stranger Things was somehow responsible for IT.  But it wasn't even responsible for the new release considering it was in production already before ST was released.

 

Also count me among the people who think there wasn't a lot of 'unnecessary' content in the book.  There's some of King's works that really do feel longer than need be (the unabridged version of the Stand slows down a lot at certain parts) but IT, to me, has always been a gripping read all the way through.

 

I feel that way about the Stand too.  I had a hard time getting through it when I read it the first time.  But with IT, everything, imo, is relevant and the 1100 pages just flies by.  Thanks for commenting. :)

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On 9/13/2017 at 11:34 AM, The Stingray said:

I think IT works as a fun breezy little adventure. IT does the Stand by Me thing quite well. The kids are great and the interactions between them sweet (the girl steals the show). Where IT falls completely flat is at horror. The director doesn't seem to be bothered with such crucial horror elements as suspense, pacing and atmosphere. What we're left with is jump scares of the cheapest variety and an overabundance of goofy special effects.

 

7/10
 

I completely agree with your review, which reads more like a 5/10 than a 7. 

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One of the things I'm actually wondering is whether or not this actually needed to be rated R.  Granted, it's entirely possible that I've mostly gotten used to a lot of rated R horror basically devolving into blood splatter and gore, so something that's actually relatively light on the gore content may just come across as less "R" to me by now.

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1 minute ago, Sal said:

One of the things I'm actually wondering is whether or not this actually needed to be rated R.  Granted, it's entirely possible that I've mostly gotten used to a lot of rated R horror basically devolving into blood splatter and gore, so something that's actually relatively light on the gore content may just come across as less "R" to me by now.

I didn't find this movie to be very scary tbh and thought with a few shots of gore cut out and some of the F-bombs trimmed this could've easily passed for a PG-13.

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Structurally problematic. One hour in and Pennywise was still making its first appearance to some of the kids. The Hunted House sequence feels like a finale except it isn’t and you realize there still a half hour left. 

 

And how laughable is that movie tries to scare us with PG crappy CGI creatures? 

 

Also, so painfully overscored.

 

I liked the kids and most scenes with Pennywise. The Photo Projector scene is terrific and the only one even remotely scary.

Edited by Goffe
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