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FilmsHorror

IT (2017) (DVD film review).

I never saw the Tim Curry TV version of ‘IT’ but with a book on the production of both the current films, I thought it wise to watch the film before tackling it.

In October 1988, Georgie (actor Jackson Robert Scott) tries to retrieve his paper boat from going down the drain and encounters Pennywise the clown (actor Bill Skarsgȃrd) has him for a bite to eat.

An unspecified couple months later, four misfit kids in the town of Derry are planning some time out in the woods but go down in the sewer instead. A fifth joins them when he evades the local bully gang and they decide to go back to town. One of the bullies goes into the sewer and, well, let’s just say he gets his just reward. Getting some supplies to patch the fifth kid up, Beverley Marsh (actrsss Sophie Lillis) helps them avoid paying.

The next day, all six of them go off and play in the quarry. Ben Hanscom (actor Jeremy Ray Taylor) tells them about the deaths in the history of the town and kids go missing or die six times more than the national average. Later, Eddie Kaspbrak (actor Jack Dylan Grazer) encounters and escapes Pennywise. Beverley also had a bloody encounter in the bathroom but also escapes it. Billy Denbrough (actor Jaeden Martell) encounters his dead brother Georgie and Pennywise in the basement of his flooded home and flees.

The next day, Beverley shows the other kids the bloody mess in her bathroom that her father couldn’t see and they help her clean up. Later, they share the various experiences they’ve had. They also rescue Mike Hanlon (actor Chosen Jacobs) from the three remaining bullies. Ben Hanscom points out that these things happen every 27 years.

They investigate and realise the sewer link leads to the spooky Well House. More amazing that none of them are armed or otherwise prepared when they go inside. It isn’t like they haven’t seen Pennywise together. They survive the encounter and not sure about facing them again, especially as Eddie ends up with a broken arm. Even the bullies aren’t alone in all of this but then you shouldn’t be alone. Then Beverley is kidnapped and the rest of the kids have no choice but to go to the Well House again and rescue her. For the rest, you’ll have to watch for yourself.

The underbelly of this town is creepy enough without any clown getting in the way. One has a sadistic father of a cop. Beverley’s father looks like a borderline paedo and the kid in glasses mother is a hypochondriac pumping him with placebos.

Identifying the names of the kids is hard and I watched with IMdB by my side for any clue as to who was who and thought while I was unsure, keep the identification a similar way. I do wish scriptwriters would do more to identify all their cast in the films.

None of them think it’s odd to hear voices out of the sink or the distance a tape measure can go down it. No one seems to question why they are each experiencing their worse nightmares while awake neither. In many respects, it’s like a what would happen if Stephen King wrote his version of an Enid Blyton story with horrific consequences.
Without reading his book, I’m still puzzled why it is called ‘It’ and not ‘Pennywise’. It’s even spookier when the adults don’t join the dots and they all appear to live in houses without proper lighting. Mind you, all their parents seem to be in the singular and a lot scarier than Pennywise. I wonder if American kids are this bad or this is an exaggerated version of what really goes on. The Well House looks awfully like a depilated version of the Addams Family house.

The biggest puzzle is why this clown is doing all of these things every 27 years. We don’t really get much insight into why these happen or why the Derry population has amnesia as to what is happening. With that many deaths, What makes these kids so different that they can fight him? As a self-described Losers Club, you would think they have enough to run away from.

The nearly 15 minutes of extras are basically 11 extended or deleted scenes.

Excuse me now, I see a nice red balloon that needs my attention.

GF Willmetts

September 2019

(region 2 DVD: pub: Warner Bros. 1 DVD 129 minute film with extras. Price: I pulled my copy for about £ 5.00 (UK). ASIN: 5000245309)

cast: Jaden Martell, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jaconbs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff and Bill Skarsgȃrd

check out website: www.warnerbros.com

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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