Maybe my memory is faulty, but I recall liking John Ritter as well.
But let's be honest. It was Tim Curry's show.
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Stephen King's IT |OT| He thrusts his fists and then he posts (Unmarked spoilers)
- Thread starter Kyleripman
- Start date
But let's be honest. It was Tim Curry's show.
elrechazado
Banned
RuinerPrime
Member
John Ritter gets like 10 mins of screen time/lines, super under used. The actor playing Bill was so bad I don't know how he got the part. And that pony tail *shudders* scariest thing in the movie.
Astral Dog
Member
Two weeks 😔
Oddly, that vagueness is as specific as I needed.
Lan Dong Mik
And why would I want them?
Dat thread title!!
I am so fucking ready for this movie
I am so fucking ready for this movie
Astral Dog
Member
Thats a classic ;^)
MagnaderAlpha
Member
Reminds me of when this movie was announced, I was walking REALLY early in the morning (before dawn) and I saw a bunch of balloons tied to a sewer grate by a park. Nobody was out on the street but me and the street light shined directing on the balloons. Pretty creepy. Of course, they weren't just red balloons, but in the novel, Pennywise used multi-colored balloons.
It was that
amazing eh?=O
It reminded me why I had a phobia of Pennywise as a child! The acting in the film was top-notch and so were the visual effect really brought it all together! going to see it again Tomorrow.
Mushroomer25
Member
Just got out of an advance screening. Coming at this as somebody who hadn't read the book or seen the original series. Absolutely excellent. It strongly captures that Spielberg-ian sense of child-like wonder, and blends it with very modern horror sensibilities.
Wow, that's crazy, this does sound really good. And lucky!
More_Badass
Member
Well that's a good sign
Less than an hour from now(2AM EST) if that tweet from twitter is true.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Okay, so: The kids are all pretty damned good. When this movie is working, it reminds me most of the best parts of Stand By Me. It's not as good as that movie, of course, and the performances don't end up anywhere near as good as River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, & Kiefer Sutherland's in that film, but there's also never anything as thin as O'Connell and Wheaton's work. IT is powered by the camaraderie between the kids, and when the film is echoing the sort of "shooting the shit while walking the train tracks" sort of vibe, it's a solid, solid effort.
As a haunted house film, it's pretty decently constructed. I know it's an easy pun - but the film floats from set-piece to set-piece pretty effortlessly. And perfunctorily, but more on that in a little bit. It's not bad, but it's also, surprisingly, not very scary. Like, at all. It hits the beats, it just doesn't hit them all that hard for the most part, outside of one or two really effective visual ideas executed well.
Skarsgard's Pennywise is a twitchy, weird, fidgety presence in the film. But here's where we start getting into the biggest problem of IT - it's not the visuals, because the visuals are pretty damned good (yes, there's obvious CG, but considering the nightmare imagery we're dealing with, unrealistic creatures aren't too distracting), it's not the music, which I found pretty decent in the moments the film gave itself over to the score. It's not even really Pennywise, who I still think looks and behaves more like the monster from the book than I think Curry's portrayal does.
Derry is not a character in this movie. It's just a place where a haunted house is planted. And so far as I can remember: Pennywise never gets an on-screen kill in this movie, save for Georgie at the beginning, and even then, you don't really see that kill.
So yeah. That's a problem. Because part of why the kids feel so imperiled, part of why the book's atmosphere is so oppressive, is due to the town being being malignant and its denizens being complicit in Pennywise's cycle. And in this movie, Derry is just a town. Bad shit has happened here, but its all academic. It's not really felt, and it's not really shown. It's just quickly referenced, usually in passing, and not only does that soften the overall sense of dread, it softens the threat of Henry Bowers, because now he's just a screaming mullet instead of an unhinged manifestation of the town's callousness and cowardice.
And so if you're not going to have the town be a living, cancerous tumor on Maine's ass, then you need to make Pennywise just that much more threatening and malicious, and Skarsgard is basically pinned in a very limited range of giggly superficial evil and confused, uncomprehending frustration. He never gets happy, he never gets really angry, he never really gets frustrated, or scared. The two or three notes he's allowed to play, he plays really well (and he plays them all in that one scene with Georgie) but past that, either he's smiling, or he's giggling, or he's racing at the screen with a go-pro strapped to his chest and that's about it. The clown never really gets his gloves dirty.
It's a good movie. It's a fun little haunted house ride. Finn Wolfhard basically steals the whole movie everytime he opens his mouth (and he apparently loves himself a shitty game of Street Fighter 1). But it's a lot thinner, safer, and lighter than I was expecting. The crowd at the screening was definitely up for that ride. A couple set pieces ended and relieved murmurs rumbled up in response once they were done. But this is a film that doesn't have much of a sense of menace. It hits the beats, sets up the next beat as fast as possible, and then hits that. It finds itself in this weird in-between space where it's fine being profane and bloody as much as it wants, but that's as far as its ugliness ever goes. When it comes to the real nasty shit the book thrives on, the everyday horror of small-town cruelty and ignorance? There's almost nothing there.
As a haunted house film, it's pretty decently constructed. I know it's an easy pun - but the film floats from set-piece to set-piece pretty effortlessly. And perfunctorily, but more on that in a little bit. It's not bad, but it's also, surprisingly, not very scary. Like, at all. It hits the beats, it just doesn't hit them all that hard for the most part, outside of one or two really effective visual ideas executed well.
Skarsgard's Pennywise is a twitchy, weird, fidgety presence in the film. But here's where we start getting into the biggest problem of IT - it's not the visuals, because the visuals are pretty damned good (yes, there's obvious CG, but considering the nightmare imagery we're dealing with, unrealistic creatures aren't too distracting), it's not the music, which I found pretty decent in the moments the film gave itself over to the score. It's not even really Pennywise, who I still think looks and behaves more like the monster from the book than I think Curry's portrayal does.
Derry is not a character in this movie. It's just a place where a haunted house is planted. And so far as I can remember: Pennywise never gets an on-screen kill in this movie, save for Georgie at the beginning, and even then, you don't really see that kill.
So yeah. That's a problem. Because part of why the kids feel so imperiled, part of why the book's atmosphere is so oppressive, is due to the town being being malignant and its denizens being complicit in Pennywise's cycle. And in this movie, Derry is just a town. Bad shit has happened here, but its all academic. It's not really felt, and it's not really shown. It's just quickly referenced, usually in passing, and not only does that soften the overall sense of dread, it softens the threat of Henry Bowers, because now he's just a screaming mullet instead of an unhinged manifestation of the town's callousness and cowardice.
And so if you're not going to have the town be a living, cancerous tumor on Maine's ass, then you need to make Pennywise just that much more threatening and malicious, and Skarsgard is basically pinned in a very limited range of giggly superficial evil and confused, uncomprehending frustration. He never gets happy, he never gets really angry, he never really gets frustrated, or scared. The two or three notes he's allowed to play, he plays really well (and he plays them all in that one scene with Georgie) but past that, either he's smiling, or he's giggling, or he's racing at the screen with a go-pro strapped to his chest and that's about it. The clown never really gets his gloves dirty.
It's a good movie. It's a fun little haunted house ride. Finn Wolfhard basically steals the whole movie everytime he opens his mouth (and he apparently loves himself a shitty game of Street Fighter 1). But it's a lot thinner, safer, and lighter than I was expecting. The crowd at the screening was definitely up for that ride. A couple set pieces ended and relieved murmurs rumbled up in response once they were done. But this is a film that doesn't have much of a sense of menace. It hits the beats, sets up the next beat as fast as possible, and then hits that. It finds itself in this weird in-between space where it's fine being profane and bloody as much as it wants, but that's as far as its ugliness ever goes. When it comes to the real nasty shit the book thrives on, the everyday horror of small-town cruelty and ignorance? There's almost nothing there.
Vault Dweller 111
Member
:/
Well, there's Bobby's thoughts on it, glad to hear it's good at least.
2AM EST if that tweet is right.
Well, fuck. That's why the book is scary. Dramatically more time is spent in the book establishing the town of Derry vs. IT. The two are joined at the hip.
That's a pretty big bummer.
TheTylerRob
Member
Maybe Derry's backstory will be more fleshed out in the sequel? That might make more sense because Mike conducts his research as an adult. Still, I'm glad it sounds like this movie mostly works.
DerekOfTheDykes
Member
Well that's both uplifting and a little sad. It seems like this still misses some of the point of the book, but is still a good film that is ultimately much better overall than the crap miniseries. Is that a fair summation?
Also, do we get to see It take any forms outside of Pennywise
and maybe the weird spider beast
Chaotic-Strike
Banned
It doesn't sound like the adaption I was looking for.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Galactic Specter
Member
That's disappointing to hear, the town's history is intertwined with the creature's itself so to not have that could make things a bit shallow. This issue could be alleviated in the second part with Mike's occupation as a librarian but still.
Still looking forward to seeing it myself
The Driver
Member
Lame, Fukunaga would never do us like this.
Lmao
I am pretty bummed about Derry not being an oppressive hell hole though. Same with Pennywise not getting some kills in onscreen either.
That can be fixed in the sequel though. Open it with some fuckery set in the past with Pennywise being there in some of Derry's fucked up moments. Maybe that's already the idea and they just went really safe this time around to make sure people show up for the sequel.
Lmao
I am pretty bummed about Derry not being an oppressive hell hole though. Same with Pennywise not getting some kills in onscreen either.
That can be fixed in the sequel though. Open it with some fuckery set in the past with Pennywise being there in some of Derry's fucked up moments. Maybe that's already the idea and they just went really safe this time around to make sure people show up for the sequel.
I'm hoping they will get more into the town in the adult movie because really, the adults don't DO much in the book other than show up again, and go down to confront It the next day. Their sections/developments are much shorter than the kids in the book. So it would make sense to have history in the second.
Even if they don't though, a good movie is still a good movie, even if it ends up missing out on Derry.
Even if they don't though, a good movie is still a good movie, even if it ends up missing out on Derry.
It shouldn't be a spoiler thread, and his short review contains spoilers...
More_Badass
Member
Many things easily could, no one has tried till now
Very light spoilers imo.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
I don't think there's anything even remotely spoilery other than "Finn Wolfhard plays Street Fighter."
I guess maybe "Pennywise doesn't get an onscreen kill" but that's not really a spoiler because I'm telling you about a thing that doesn't happen in the movie, not a thing that does.
I guess maybe "Pennywise doesn't get an onscreen kill" but that's not really a spoiler because I'm telling you about a thing that doesn't happen in the movie, not a thing that does.
Lifejumper
Member
Soo.. Finn Wolfhard the next Daniel Day Lewis?
Bobby Roberts
Banned
My friend made the best comparison on the way home:
Finn Wolfhard's Richie Tozier is basically the kid on the bike in The Nice Guys.
But for a whole movie.
Finn Wolfhard's Richie Tozier is basically the kid on the bike in The Nice Guys.
But for a whole movie.
I mean...the book came out in 1986. I know it's a LONG book, but there's been time...
Yes, you're right, but at the same time one is kind of too much for me because now every time I see Penny in an intense sequence I'll be expecting that person to not be killed before my eyes.
Either way it's not his fault as I should know not to read a review without getting something spoiled out of it, and the curiosity was killing me.
That sounds like a personal problem, bro.
Thank you got expressing my thoughts much more eloquently than I was able to! When I was talking about the movie lacking subtlety it wasn't just in reference to the visual effects, it was to do with the way it doesn't really capture the insidious heart of Derry itself (which I think is a more subtle type of horror for the average moviegoer than throwing CGI monsters at the screen).
To be fair, do you think it's possible for a movie to do that in such a limited timeframe? It seems like something that really requires a hefty novel, as IT obviously is, or like a three hour movie. In 2 hours 15 minutes it already has to cover the kids getting to know each other and bonding with each other, each kid getting shown a fear in isolation, cover some secondary characters like the bullies, Eddie's mom, Beverley's dad etc, have them deal with Pennywise together at least once before the final battle....what is there is already stretched a bit thin in places.
I'm not sure what could be lost from the movie as is, purely in terms of plot points, without compromising the kids part of the story, in which case I think the issue could only be resolved by making it longer, but maybe that wasn't an option with the studio (when Fukanaga left the project he did say he thought WB just wanted a standard horror movie rather than what he was trying to make).
More_Badass
Member
Fukunaga's script is weird as fuck, I don't think it was what people would have wanted from an IT movie either
And reading the book, I never got the sense that Derry was portrayed as an oppressive hellhole. It was more like an American small town version of a Lovecraftian hamlet with a dark secret
IT is!
I applaud this. 👏
Chaotic-Strike
Banned
It's not so much as a secret in the book as it's a part of the town that the citizens willfully ignore.
More_Badass
Member
That's the dark secret. You know like how a village silently accepts their good harvest knowing it was a result of the yearly sacrifice that no one talks about
It was a dark secret for the kids and reader to uncover; that it's known and ignored by the adults is the unsettling disturbing part