IT - the Movie seen-it thread (replete with spoilers!)

Cafe Society
1

I’ll preface this by noting it’s a book I’ve read probably a half-dozen times, so I went in with mixed expectations…it’s among my favorite King novels, but we’ve been let down before.

That said, I did enjoy it moderately well. The book’s worst scene was replaced by a sweet kiss, and they cut out a lot of peripheral characters who weren’t necessary for the plot. Some of the plot changes were interesting, though…Mike appears to kill Henry Bowers by pushing him down a well, so it’s not clear that he’s supposed to survive that and return for the second movie. Beverly’s dad is even more creepy than he was in the book (if that’s possible), and there’s a stupid damsel-in-distress substitution, maybe as a parallel to what happens to Bev as an adult?

Overall though they did a good job consolidating about 600 pages of original text material into something manageable.

Oh, and there’s a LOT of expository dialogue…I wonder if that stuck out for someone who hadn’t read the book?

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PS I did spot an easter egg, which was the brand of beer bottle that Richie badly breaks on the stair railing…Bob Gray!

3

Saw it a few hours ago and am so glad you started this thread (I saw it alone so no one to discuss it with).

The overall look of it was gorgeous; well photographed and edited. The sound was very effective, in particular the scene with Stan in his dad’s office and the portrait of the woman. By the way, what the hell is that picture? Is that a real thing / style or was it created for the film? Because damn, that is disturbing. The only sound related thing I did not care for was the numerous jump scares. This director seems way too good for that nonsense.

I loved the main cast. I think my favorite of the boys was Eddie. He has the look and feel of “an old soul” if you get what I mean. I’m certainly not the first to predict that Sophia Lillis is going to go far. I giggled when Richie made the Molly Ringwald crack and wondered if the actor came up with that line himself.

As I always do when I see a screen adaptation of a book, I wonder how it looks to someone not familiar with it. There were times when I questioned if it was making sense (though I personally didn’t care). I also wonder if people will be as enamored of Bill Skarsgard as I. As I said in a different It thread, his Pennywise blows Tim Curry’s away. I could also see some finding it kind of goofy.

I wouldn’t be averse to seeing it again on screen if any of my IRL peeps want to and I’ll definitely be making it part of my blueray collection. That being said, I feel it’s very much a movie for people that are already fans.

4

Just got back. I enjoyed it a lot. Some of the narrative choices bugged me a bit (like the previously mentioned damsel-in-distress thing) but overall I thought it worked very well. There were a lot of jump scares (something I was concerned about–I don’t like them) but they were mostly well-telegraphed enough that I could prepare for them. A couple of them got me good, though!

I’m not sure whether I liked this cast of kids better than the one in the TV miniseries. The girl playing Beverly is a good actress, though I couldn’t shake the feeling that she seemed quite a bit older than the rest of the kids. Overall, I still think I prefer the miniseries kids to the movie ones, but both were fine.

Pennywise was creepy. I thought he might have been in it a bit too much–liked him better when he was mysterious–but that’s okay.

I am very glad Henry didn’t shoot the cat. That would have been it for me, right there.

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The creature on Stan’s dad’s wall seemed to be a dybbuk holding a flute, but I have no idea why it was there, other than to terrify Stan. It had a slight Conjuring 2 vibe, if you’re familiar with that film.

One great thing I meant to mention, I think all the boy actors are 14 and Sophie Lillis is 15, so they’re all actually the right age, rather than a bunch of 18/19 year olds playing little kids.

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Yes, you hit it; Beverly seemed older than the rest. I’ll give the casting director the benefit of the doubt and assume it was the concept that girls mature faster than boys. It was noticeable which isn’t great, but the actress is so engaging I can deal with it.

I forgot that I’d read in a spoilered review that Henry shoots a cat. At the time I mistook it to mean he *kills *a cat. That would have changed my opinion somewhat. I had a hard enough time dealing with the sheep scene.

Funny (though I prefer it) that they did not pull any punches regarding graphic portrayals of violence against children but they spared us the sight of a cat being shot.

The scene with the Ed Rooney looking mother fucker pharmacist was about as creepy as anything else (though obviously in a different way). The actor really nailed the paedo vibe and I wondered how he felt and what he and the actress said to one another between takes. I also sort of wonder if he realizes just how convincing he is and if that gives him pause.

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But he didn’t shoot the cat. His dad showed up and took the gun away from him before he could.

If I got that wrong, please don’t tell me–I prefer to remember it my way. But I’m pretty sure I didn’t. I was watching closely.

Yeah, that was creepy. So were the scenes with Beverly’s dad, especially the one before she snapped.

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No, the cat didn’t get shot. But the look on his friend’s face was absurdly funny when he shouted, “hold it STILL!”

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Yes, Info, as Maserschmidt confirmed, no kitty no shooty. I had just forgotten that I had seen it mentioned and I thought mouser was gonna get it.

I thought it a curious choice to make Henry’s dad a cop and in the end, somewhat sympathetic(?) He intervened a couple of times IIRC, and while you could see he was a mean son of a bitch and it explained why Henry was the way he was, he seemed to have a little bit of a redeeming quality, whereas in the book he was just bat shit insane.

Another thing that seemed a (minor) misstep was the bit with the grasping hands trying to get out of the butcher shop. When I saw it in the trailer I was sure it was a reference to the fire at The Black Spot and then we get the somewhat lame, out of nowhere explanation about the fire that killed Mike’s parents. Why would their ghosty hands be at the butcher shop? For that matter, why were there so many of them? Also, when Mike tells the story of their demise, doesn’t he mention “that old burned out house on Neibolt St.”? Maybe I heard wrong or am misremembering, but when he said it I got confused as to why his family would have been living at the creepy house we see later.

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I really enjoyed it. I thought it captured the essence of the novel well. And by updating it to the 80s, it nailed a lot of nostalgia for me, particularly as I remember being the only girl in the gang. The pseudo macho boy banter was spot on, as was the obvious sense of comfort Beverly felt as one of the guys.

A couple of things surprised me. I was shocked with the Georgie dismemberment, mostly because I thought it was taboo even in horror movies to do that to children. I don’t watch many horror movies… am I right? Was that unusually brutal?

And the Beverly’s Dad thing, I just don’t remember from the books. Did he abuse her in the books? I certainly don’t remember him chasing her around the house trying to rape her. I managed those scenes better than I would have guessed (the first scene in the hallway upset me far more than the damsel-in-distress scene, because I know what was running through her mind during every agonizing second, trying to downplay her burgeoning sexuality around him, etc.) At first I was pissed off and it felt gratuitous to me, but I have thought it through and ultimately I think it adds rather than subtracts.

Everybody’s got their own unique hell, which was part of the point. The things we really fear are the real things. Beverly’s scariest thing was her Dad, Bill’s was the loss of his brother. My burly ex-marine friend was more upset by Georgie’s death than anything else, as he freaks out whenever kids are hurt. So there was something for everyone to get worked up about. So if I’m being honest, the Beverly’s Dad angle is what made the scary stuff real, for me. And that was truly in line with King’s vision in the novel, which IIRC opened with Beverly as an adult getting the shit beat out of her by her husband. I think the movie would have benefited from emphasizing the real horrors a little more.

I also found myself, as the movie went along, getting braver along with the kids, less afraid to face It. I’ve seen reviews that criticize it on those grounds, saying the scares get weaker as they are too repetitive, but for me it was a way of being on that journey with the kids. Sort of like, if they can face this, so can I.

I’m glad they skipped the tweenage gangbang. I mean, I knew they would, but that scene is an embarrassment that mars what is otherwise a masterpiece novel by King. I’ve seen him try to come up with all sorts of tortured metaphors to explain it, but as one reviewer put it, “Dude. Just admit it was the drugs.”

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It possessed Bevs Dad in the CHUD part of the book and led him into the Gardens where he saw her playing with the boys. He err wanted to check if she was still ‘intact’. He chased her across town and began the first series of events that led to the first confrontation with It.

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The filmmakers deserve plenty of criticism for gutting the Mike Hanlon character and erasing the vicious racism in Derry and the Bowers family. There is really no excuse for this decision. And to make Ben the historian??

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I agree completely. Mike was one of my favorite characters in the book and the original miniseries, and I quite dislike how this movie turned him from a bookish historian into a homeschooled sheep farmer.

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I apparently remember nothing from the book (hardly unusual for me…I won’t remember the movie a week from now) but I thought Derry’s racism was clear enough in the film. It was obvious the Black Spot fire was racially motivated and it was obvious the bully was racist, and it was obvious in Grandpa’s speech that he was talking about Mike’s vulnerability being a black kid in a small town. It wasn’t explicit in the same way that Beverly’s Dad wasn’t literally tearing off her clothes in the attempted rape scene. I’m not sure why they chose to understate those horrifying things in a horror film aimed at adults, but maybe because it would open them to criticism that they’re using the victimization of women and minorities for shock value horror. (I have no doubt they will still be criticized on those grounds by some people.) During the brutalization of Mike, I kept waiting for the racial slurs, but it occurred to me in today’s social context, people get pissed off toward artists even for accurate depictions of racism. Maybe this was cowardice on the part of the creators, and as they are damned either way, they may as well come down on the side of confronting our ugly social problems rather than understating them. My best guess as to why they made Ben the historian was to make their protagonist as relevant as possible in the space of 90 minutes. He would otherwise not have been very useful. I do think it’s unfortunate when good elements of character are left out, but condensing an 1100 page book into a 90 minute film cannot be easy.

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True, although the TV miniseries, which covered not just the kids’ part but the adults’ too, was only a little over three hours long. This movie was 2:15. You might have a point about the racism, but I still think they could have kept Mike as the historian (especially since Ben was the new kid).

BTW, I didn’t like the “New Kids on the Block” references. It seemed forced to me that a kid like Ben would be a boy-band fan, so I felt like it was put in as a cheap joke.

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As a passionate NKOTB fan during that exact era, I thought it was hysterical. Though I agree it wasn’t necessarily in character. The film was definitely relying on the nostalgia factor for folks my age. It worked so well with Stranger Things.

I never saw the old series so I can’t compare them. I’m not exactly a horror movie aficionado, I just really liked the book, and King’s work in general. I am now really curious about the original series. I understand Tim Curry has a stellar performance.

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I just checked out of curiosity - she isn’t much older. The actors are all in the 14-16 range( she’s 15 ). Of course they are trying to portray 11-12 year olds and it is a lot harder to hide puberty on a 15 year old girl.

No, he just beat her on a regular basis. King was more subtle - the undercurrent was that there was a sublimated urge to molest her( which IT uses against her as an adult ), but as far as the book goes there is no indication he actually ever did so. I have read that the sexual aspect was deliberately played up as part of the translation to the screen.

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The miniseries had casting issues (A ponytailed Richard Thomas as Bill; John Ritter as Ben…wtf) and had to be toned down for network TV. That said, the second half was pretty good.

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I really liked the old miniseries. They’ve been playing it a lot lately on TV, and I have the DVD version I watch occasionally in the background while I’m doing other things. I thought most of the casting was quite good (Curry was fantastic, but both the kids and the adults were well cast too). It was quite creepy for its day (the Chinese restaurant scene still creeps me out). The only really bad part (and it was really bad) was the ending. I won’t spoil it for you, but it was awful. Bad CGI and just a dumb idea.

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Oh, man, the Chinese restaurant scene! One of the scariest parts of the book IMO.

The movie had some scares, but the book was freaking terrifying. I think it’s the scariest one I’ve read by King.