I.T. (2017) – A competent little remake

I suppose my enjoyment on the 2017 remake of Stephen King’s classic novel ‘It’ is based on two things (1) the fact that I’m very familiar with the original film adaptation and (2) I saw it a few weeks after it came out in the cinema, therefore I’d already been exposed to the numerous positive reviews claiming that, in a summer of lackluster Box Office performances, It ‘saved’ the summer’s takings.  However, once I left the cinema, I was left a little disappointed.  I’m not saying that I hated the film, just that it didn’t – quite – live up to expectations.

It’s about seven youngsters who discover an evil creature has been stalking and killing kids throughout the history of their town and need to survive the summer holidays before it gets them, too (think ‘Stand By Me’ but with a monster).  Films with children as the leads do sometimes tend to struggle, however, I’m pleased to say that all the youngsters rise to the occasion and perform admirably and you’ll have no problem believing that this band of self-confessed ‘losers’ would hang out in real life.

Despite all the kids being good at what they do, there are seven of them and a couple seem to get overshadowed and pushed to the back burners.  I know the original source material had seven, so they had to kind of keep to that template, but a couple could have quite easily been left out.  I think the one girl of the group, Beverly, (played by Sophia Lillis) is the stand out star and probably one to watch for future films.

But, no matter how good the kids are, most people are there to see the monster – aka ‘Penniewise’ the clown.  He was made famous by Tim Curry’s excellent performance in the original and many wondered how this could be topped.   Despite some people objecting to how the clown looks now (yes, he’s slightly different, but no less scary), the major difference is how he acts.  He isn’t as vocal as Tim Curry was.  Curry was constantly gabbling his jibberish while stalking the youngsters.  This time Penniewise relies more on transformations to intimidate his prey.  However, this links nicely into the involvement of the special effects which are used well to convey the dread Penniewise inspires in his victims prior to killing them and feasting on their fear.

I guess my major gripes came with the fact that it stuck a little too closely to the original, therefore I kind of knew who lived and who died, therefore taking away any worry I felt when one of the kids was in danger.  Plus, as I’ve already said, it’s quite a long film (or it seemed like that to me!).  By ‘long’ I mean that I felt like it should have ended numerous times before it actually did.  I kept expecting the screen to fade to black and people start leaving the cinema, only for it to start up again and continue.  

But, ultimately, it was still a pretty watchable film.  I can actually see the point in remaking this classic horror flick.  I guess it’s probably not really meant for me, as the original Tim Curry version will always be my ‘It.’ However, I can see new audiences who have never watched the audience really enjoying it (as other reviews suggest).

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that