itt: it

I think we should have a dedicated thread for discussing IT (2017) aka IT:CHAPTER ONE, directed by Andy Muschietti and starring a Skarsgård and some children, based on the book by Stephen King, as well as anticipating its sequel, set to be released in 2019

I found this film quite disappointing!

my son thought it was v enjoyable but unfortunately I've been unable to give one fuck

obv it was insanely hyped and successful - it came along at the perfect time what with the renewed interest in horror & King & the whole stranger things thing - and it does a lot of things right (the kids are great and I really like the cinematography by Chung-hoon Chung) but for a 2.5 hour film it feels quite rushed somehow, just felt to me like it completely fizzled out after a strong start. And the "scares" are fuckin pathetic, that leper should be ashamed of himself, sub-freddy nightmare house is embarrassing, and the clown suuuuucks - he can pull a creepy face but that dumb voice was such a mistake. "mmm yummy fear" lol gtfo

Anyway they hit the clown with sticks the end

I posted about it on another thread--haven't given it a thought since.

Poll Macabre: Stephen King On Film and TV

The miniseries had some pretty inventive (ever so slightly daft) scenes that weren't in the book, like the shower heads coming out and menacing Eddie who has a phobia of showering with the other boys. And then pennywise comes up out of the floor, and then - nothing happens. The killer clown has this tiny, naked kid literally cornered and the scene just ends. This sort of thing happens a lot in the miniseries, pennywise is basically just a prankster who jumps out & says boo but doesn't do anything.

I thought that the new one would at least improve on that side of things but nope, not only is it not scary there's never any sense of threat. He actually gets Stanley, has Stanley's face in his mouth for like a full minute, and Stanley has like a few tiny shallow cuts. Reminded me of watching tom & jerry as a kid & tom would swallow Jerry alive and jerry would get out & I was always like, why doesn't this cat just use his teeth to eat? Kidnapping bev & taking her to his lair to do nothing with was such tired supervillainry too. So much anticlimax. Henry Bowers falls down a thing. K.

doesn't he bite that kids arm off or something idk?

Technically yes

I think our Joel may have oversold this

It's cool how much the kids are digging this tbh, ilx consensus seems to be underwhelmed but we are miserable gits maybe

I think one fatal problem with adapting this in 2017 is how much "scary clowns" became the worst epic bacon shit

Skarsgård is basically doing the exact same kind of "haha I'm so twisted" mugging that everyone ahem clowned Jared lego for and it's disgraceful that he isn't being equally derided imo

some clickbait for those who often don't know which frigging Skarsgård ppl are actually talking about! For example I din't know the guy who plays Floki in Vikings is one as well, obv a terrible family and probably descended from nazi collaborators, but nevertheless...

http://junkee.com/guide-skarsgard-family/122139

justice for mike hanlon

he was the book's main character, and he gets about, what, six speaking lines in the whole movie?

My daughter has been obsessed with seeing this. At first I was reluctant, both because of the book but also because I wasn't sure she was ready for some hard-R freakout movie. But then I started reading about it and it just seems like a slightly above average but otherwise run of the mill jump-scare horror movie, and now I'm reluctant because I know she can do better! It's wild, though, being in the car with her and her early teen friends and hearing them talk about "It" like some right of passage "Faces of Death" like movie. Especially when something like "Gerald's Game" is just sitting there on Netflix and it is so much more intense.

that first scene with georgie is terrifying, but the rest of the scares pretty much follow the same formula: 1) kid hears a strange noise, 2) kid investigates the noise, 3) kid realizes something is out of the ordinary, but continues onward out of curiosity, 4) JUMP, 5) chase

sub-freddy nightmare house is embarrassing

Yeah, this stuff was all seemingly tailor-made to be imitated by small-town low-budget haunted houses for many Octobers to come.

Can we talk about all the kids sitting around in their tighty whiteys to the tune of Bust a Move during the quarry scene? A chick walks by you wish you could sex her/but you're standing on the wall like you was Poindexter. I didn't need anything about any of that.

The mike thing really ticked off the part of me that is still 15 and obsessed with the novel - they took away his whole deal and gave it to the kid who already has like two whole deals 😡

Yeah, completely unforgivable.

Stan otoh even in the book doesn't have much of a deal beyond "is going to kill himself", when you don't get that upfront it's just a bit of a nothing character

http://www.vulture.com/2017/09/cary-fukunaga-it-script-what-the-movie-changes.html

xp he also likes birds

Likes birds, is doomed: not gonna lie, it isn't much but it's more than this film could be bothered to come up with

Here we get: is Jewish, does uhhh Jewish stuff

the change made me wonder if they're planning to kill him off instead for some reason

wins otm. enjoyably Stranger Things, but not very scary and the payback was kind of a cop out 'I am not afraid of you' believe in yourself garbage. Shame really. I liked it more than I didn't like it

I should watch this, I guess. My sister loved it and she's the harshest horror fan I know. Nothing passes muster with her (the last film I can remember us giving a collective two thumbs up was Home Movie).

It isn't completely awful it just doesn't live up to its rep imo. Hopefully some people will come and say nice things about it at some point (jclc really liked it iirc)

If you like stranger things at its best you'll like the interactions between the kids for sure. Wee nebbish germophobe + Finn wolfhard are a legit hilarious double act

I appreciate it as a coming of age film, Finn Wolfhard (still can't believe this is his real name) was a great Richie, the actress who played Beverly was great. Like someone upthread said, it felt a little thin for 2.5 hours, but there were plenty of genuinely creepy moments

Finn wolfhard and chosen Jacobs

xp yeah, eddie was great too, his chapters were always the hardest for me to get through in the book, but the kid who played him had a lot of charm and one of the best "i'm horrified" looks in the biz

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-zKZrMX1z_Tk/WeJSSyfB-uI/AAAAAAAAASg/F9tb9_c4unomxJ_ri1cdTY0KxyO8lUziwCJoC/w540-h256/IMG_0862.GIF

not enough sewergangbanging imo

It was interesting to read in that vulture piece that the original script had a version of that scene! (The fukunaga version of this would for sure have been better, nobody doubts this right)

it’s so weird to me that this beloved book, which has spawned a tv series and two movies and is to this day a cornerstone of its writer’s career, has a pivotal scene where a bunch of underage kids fuck in a sewer

no doubt. cary's a mean old daddy, but i like him fine.

xp it's surprisingly easy to forget about considering there are approximately 2000 pages where kids aren't fucking in a sewer

Another thing I thought was well done was what king in the book calls the apocalyptic rock fight. I like how they abruptly cut to a wide shot and it suddenly looks exactly as pathetic as a rock fight would irl. Reminds me of a similar moment in twin peaks s3 where shit's getting crazy and there's a sudden cut to a master shot that just hilariously deflates the scene

Cocaine is a helluva drug xp

I already discussed this in the thread on King adaptations as well, but I liked it. Nothing really scary beyond the prologue (though I did jump during the projector scene), and (echoing clemenza in the other thread), I'm just sick to death of busy CGI effects. It would be nice if the whole 80s nostalgia thing that a lot of movies/TV are going for these days would extend one of them using 80s-style practical FX.

The cast was fantastic, and I would go so far as to say that this is one of the best set of child actors I've ever seen on film. The film worked for me as both a coming-of-age movie and even as a sentimental Spielberg-esque suburban fantasy (call me a sap, but the stuff with the brothers worked for me in a straightforward tearjerker-y way). Just not so much as a horror movie.

the kids' swearing was the best part of the movie

loved the book and was disappointed by the movie, structurally it was a failure because the power and immensity of the evil of 'it' in the book is best demonstrated by the frequent flipping back and forth between the childhood/adult timelines. despite everything they went thru as kids, they forgot everything and ended up repeating and recreating the abusive and traumatic and toxic circumstances of their youth (i.e. beverly's husband). that was totally lost in the movie and defanged 'it'

this is one of the best set of child actors I've ever seen on film

otm. issues I had were with the script, not with the performances. the adults didn't really act like recognizable humans to me, but I kind of understand that as an artistic choice. the novel makes clear that It affects all the adults in Derry to make them either monsters or bystanders. but it could've been a little less bodysnatchers-y

Yeah I could see what they were going for and I liked that they made Henry's & Bev's dads and the pharmacist even nastier but it's a bit much to have every adult be a dead-eyed psychopath the whole time

Similarly the creepy tv show in the background the whole time is neat in some ways but having the adults be literally hypnotised by a subliminal message is a bit too, well, literal

Reminds me of a similar moment in twin peaks s3 where shit's getting crazy and there's a sudden cut to a master shot that just hilariously deflates the scene

― scrüt (wins), Thursday, February 1, 2018 9:32 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, okay, the TP scene you're referring to is hilarious and I think you've sold me on this for all the wrong reasons.

iirc from the book, the pharmacist was not a bad dude at all.

In the book it's suggested that even tho he's "doing the right thing" he takes a sadistic pleasure in upending eddie's world

Ha, okay, the TP scene you're referring to is hilarious and I think you've sold me on this for all the wrong reasons.

If you go in for the comedy those are prob the right reasons! It's what this film does well

yeah the pharmacist was certainly mean, at the very least. he was also very involved in the 1930 murder of the gangsters in the book.

Oh yeah, I remember that now.

i haven't watched this one yet but is it actually any good?

it got a lot of mixed reviews

maybe if you haven't read the book

i actually haven't

so a classic case of book is better?

worth watching for sure, prob better if you haven't read the book

FUCK THIS MOVIE

well then

lol

yeah i mean there isn't really any way to adapt a 1,100+ page novel into a two or even three hour movie. should've been another miniseries. but i can't emphasize enough how badly they fucked up the movie by altering the structure of the book. one of the central ideas/qualities of 'it' is that it is eternal & cyclical, and by flipping back and forth between the 50s and the 80s in the book, demonstrating how nothing has changed in the future even as the kids struggle and fight and do their best in teh 50s, the book really successfully conveys an omnipresent evil that is so much larger and more vague and scarier than its main avatar, a scary clown. the book is about childhood trauma and how it reverberates into adulthood. the movie is about killing an evil clown. dud

unfortunately i think w/the way Hollywood tries to maximize their product, dividing IT into two separate parts in this way was the most palatable way for the films to reach a wider audience. they can easily say, oh sure the kids in Pt 1 and the adults in Pt 2 and be done with it, they don't even have to be structurally clever or interesting.

obviously a weird decision but i mean this is an industry that turned a 300 page kids' book into a 9 hour trilogy just to get the most bang for their buck.

maybe not "weird" per se, it makes perfect sense, but it's the easy way out.

THIS STUPID MOVIE HAS CGI BLOOD IN LIKE THE FIRST 5 MINUTES. JUST USE REAL FAKE BLOOD, FUCKING IDIOTS. ALSO EVERYTHING DOESN'T HAVE TO BE STRANGER THINGS, DICKHEADS!

when that diaper baby "every one floats down here bobby" or whatever scene the baby boy gets dragged and it's like the worst cgi blood in the history of the medium fuck fyck fuckfyewhfoi

it's like the worst cgi blood in the history of the medium

why is this bad tho

because it look stup and dumb and not goopy and drippy

and like filmmakers that dont just drag a baby boy and use real fake blood in a fuckin HORROR MOVIE in a scene where a boy is dragged and blood is there are just shitty filmmakers by default and they should just kill themselves. also that stupid clown dance was stupid and for idiots.

https://media.giphy.com/media/XyAGm96eUIPsc/giphy.gif

WOW REAL SCARY

https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/pennywise-dancing.gif?w=650

I MEAN WOW REAL SCARY

kurt, did you miss the part in the book where he's a russian cossack dancer pumping up a bicycle tire and kinda angry sad about it?

I have no opinions about cgi blood but I agree that the dance is scary

lol, what are those props back there anyway? Like the thing he kicks?

one of the central ideas/qualities of 'it' is that it is eternal & cyclical, and by flipping back and forth between the 50s and the 80s in the book, demonstrating how nothing has changed in the future even as the kids struggle and fight and do their best in teh 50s

someone said in an interview that the kids are gonna return for flashbacks in part 2. but yes, even though the adult story is less interesting imo, the cutting back and forth was super disorienting and helped build up that sense of dread.

Don't most productions these days use CGI blood, since it's a lot cheaper than resetting with freshly cleaned up actors and new squibs?

cgi blood is not cheaper than just dumping some liquid on the floor and filming it. it's done out of laziness.

the most drippy goopy scary movies ever made are the lowest of the low budgets.

and cgi blood does have its place i guess, but this particular instance just looked so BAD

cgi blood was used v effectively and beautifully in the tv series hannibal

https://media.giphy.com/media/ZSdirlR9iUm6Q/giphy.gif

Things were certainly gloopier back then

https://findingfaeries.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/itbloodinsink.gif

the fake blood in the chinese detective series WHEN A SNAIL FALLS IN LOVE (which everyone shd be watching as it is interesting) is a mysterious orange colour
luxury, criminal decadence, martial-arts cops and profiling on the streets of the people's republic of china: WHEN A SNAIL FALLS IN LOVE

https://findingfaeries.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/itbloodinsink.gif

Wow things were also drippy back then kurt I think you're into something

https://78.media.tumblr.com/5748cb55a0b4b34ec90f917618a95b94/tumblr_ogqb8yvplN1r2lmkgo3_400.gif

Should have been that image, my beautiful joke is ruined

the ponytails were longer back then

Re Jon Boy and his drippiness the 1990 version has one of my favourite unintentionally funny moments when bill is furiously tapping out his latest novel, obviously meant to be a Stephen King stand-in, and you hear the words in v.o. as he types them and it's complete fucking flannel, and then he leans back and whispers to himself "yeah. yeah."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE1oX0A-qKk

It's exactly 1 minute in here

the pile of cocaine must have been just offscreen

The only other good thing in the adults part of that miniseries is ben the architect's apartment

"hampstead heath, england"

s/b "west england"" iirc

xp: he's got a french horn or something up here, right?

Also, love the phrase "complete fucking flannel".

Yeah the horn is hung on the wall! He also has some crazy chairs iirc and the headboard on his bed is adorned with i) pictures of pies and ii) the letter π

It's an amazing idea of what a hotshot architect's apartment might look like

Can't find a pic ☹️

Schwitterz makes compelling case itt folks

There's a chapter in the book that says

chapter x

Nothing much happened for the rest of the summer

In always liked that

it's a rip from a chapter in something wicked this way comes: "Nothing much else happened, all the rest of that night." king book v indebted to something wicked in general imo. needful things too prob.

I've never actually read the books, but I watched the 90s miniseries A LOT as a kid and still have a soft spot for it despite it being mostly terrible (I think I told this story on ILX before, about being around age 9 and climbing into the fridge to scare my younger cousins, right after we first watched it lol). I feel like kids today might feel the same way about this film eventually.

Anyway, Tim Curry >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Skarsgard. And in both the film and the miniseries, the kid actors are the best (RIP Jonathan Brandis <3). Finn Wolfhard does seem like he's destined for a Seth Green-esque career, too.

I really hope not.

This thread title keeps making me think of Faith No More's "Epic"

wins!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wXk1jqgHC4

I hadn't noticed the armadillo bolo tie before.

Haha so I kind of misremembered every detail (don't think I ever noticed the basketball net either)

ok this thread said almost everything I thought; except I found the kids all pretty irritating in this, particularly stranger things kid. also there is just no real sense of tension or foreboding doom, just jump scares (that aren't scary).

idk I never really expected major scares in this one, it's just as much a coming of age story.

clowns aren't that scary in 2018 also

Well just from the source material I was expecting more of an effort to be scary, since it is largely a novel about fear! It manifests as whatever your deepest-rooted fears are (pennywise himself is almost incidental and like a lot of king monsters talks too damn much to be very scary)

Recently, "Jesus-please-us" has become one of my go-to involuntary exclamations. A stupid imp from the recesses of my brain when simpler swears should suffice. I thought it was just something I had picked up from my mom, but it would be out of character for her to take the Lord's name in vain. Then it hit me:

"Lookit that gut!" Henry cried in amazed disgust. "Jesus-please-us!"
Victor and Belch laughed some more.

"How deep do you think we are, Eddie?" Richie asked.
"Quarter of a mile," Eddie said. "Maybe more."
"Jesus-please-us," Beverly said.

Per google, it pops up in half a dozen or so of King's other works as well.

That's one of the more tolerable of king's "colourful" twee minced oaths, also yes one that people actually say irl

Marginally better than "jeezum crow" I guess.

lisey's story is legit unbearable due to that shit, it's the epitome of king's "every character is Ned Flanders with Tourette's" dreadful babytalk dialogue (I haven't read in a while but I'm pretty sure misery is the only time this has ever worked). I guess you don't get to be Stephen King by having a sense of embarrassment but all the doodlycunt fartboogeroony stuff is difficult, difficult work to get through

finally let my daughter watch this movie after realizing it's just another stupid horror movie and not quite like the book, thank goodness. I think she was suitably disappointed by the generic jump scariness of it.

Marginally better than "jeezum crow" I guess.

Laws, yes!

Dying at doodlycunt fartboogeroony, btw

M-O-O-N that spells fuckdiddles

Hahaha

I really liked this and not just for contrarian reasons or bcz you guys are a bunch of buzzkills

I felt a lot of the genuine stomach-tightening fear that I remembered from reading the book as a kid. And I liked the dead-eyed “creature” style portrayal that Skarsgard brought - Curry’s Pennywise was great and an excellent choice for him as an actor but in terms of the book, I liked that this version had such an otherness about it that it never behaved like a fully-formed clown, but a thing’s idea of a clown. Idk.

The kids were great, Beverly and Bill especially. Also liked the music choices - Anthrax rock fight was \m/

I did feel that the story got too rote after a while and it does suffer without the back and forth but it wasn’t a bad or unenjoyable movie at all by any means.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=61&v=cuBn9FRuFcI

Try again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuBn9FRuFcI

for all the praise Skarsgård got there's really no competition over which performance will be remembered as scarier or more iconic, huh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmOLwrvH-Ag

RIP but my god he was terrible in that

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/38118951_2219592884722411_5784712939256676352_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=d3dbfbbbaba034cdfdb62311215563a6&oe=5BC5AA50

First image of the grownups, I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqUopiAYdRg

lol I posted in the stephen kind s/d thread, because I could not find this one and it isn't very search-friendly

another excellent trailer for another movie i don't expect much from

Huh, I thought the trailer was ... not excellent. The question is, given my kid and her friends were goaded into seeing the first one by the kid cast, will they have any interest in these grown up actors? I have no idea.

It's kind of a fatal narrative flaw which hobbled the original adaptation, as well (although drawing much of the adult cast from the world of MOR primetime TV probably didn't help).

idk i'm pretty easy to please as a horror fan but its focus on the tension developing over the course of a single scene + the traditional vague collage of the rest of the movie stood out

i only plan to review these movies as trailers btw

i think it's a very good trailer, it really effectively uses that scene w/Chastain. If you're into horror i mean that's the type of thing that will hook you.

A single cliched "GET OUT!" scene. I love horror, but from the little kid skittering in the background to the weird old lady to the flies to the ... I dunno, it was pretty cliched.

"When my dad moved here ... he got a job ... at the circus ... as a CLOWN! HAHAHAHHHHAHH!"

snooze

Now I'm trying to cast the 1990 miniseries using popular stars from 1990: Schwarzenegger as Ben, Robin Williams as Richie...

it looks as if they will be employing some flashbacks as well maybe unless all that was just for the trailer and being used to link the adult characters w/their childhood and the first film.

"When my dad moved here ... he got a job ... at the circus ... as a CLOWN! HAHAHAHHHHAHH!"

I mean, that's not too far from what happens in the book.

the line is actually "he joined the circus" and then we see the photo, the word clown is never in there, and then she says she was his favorite little girl and asks Beverly if she's still her daddy's favorite. when you consider Beverly's background it's actually much creepier.

"That cedar chest in particular is a wonderful piece."

"An antique, that one!" Mrs Kersh said, and laughed. "Very old," Mrs Kersh reminisced over her empty cup, looking slyly at Beverly from her yellowed eyes. Her snaggle teeth showed in that repulsive, almost leering grin. "From home with me it came. The RG carved into it? You noticed?"

"Yes." Her voice came from far away, and a part of her brain yammered If she doesn't know you've seen the change perhaps you're still all right, if she doesn't know, doesn't see -

'My father," she said, pronouncing it fodder, and Beverly saw that her dress had also changed. It had become a scabrous, peeling black. The cameo was a skull, its jaw hung in a diseased gape. "His name was Robert Gray, better known as Bob Gray, better known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Although that was not his name, either. But he did love his joke, my fadder."

I p much hate trailers so haven’t seen but I’ll be amazed if this is any good, both for the reason given upthread - that they put all the kid stuff in the first half AGAIN - and because chapter one was a total damp squib and the whole world went wow yes please more of this

The fact that the kid actors are returning doesn’t reassure me either, prob means we’re due a 3-hour mess

oh they have ziggy sobotka playing adult eddie, that's kinda perfect

What? That's awesome!

dlh’s inland empire comparison got me to give in and watch the trailer. Unsurprisingly it’s a good call - pretty great scene up to the comic reveal that mrs kirsh’s dad was Jack Nicholson

idk I’m going to see this so I hope it is good but after the first one I’m def calibrating my expectations more towards “cgi stuff runs at the camera” and the last bit of the trailer suggests I’m right

lol I posted in the stephen kind s/d thread, because I could not find this one and it isn't very search-friendly

I've just seen the first one - sad clown face. I can understand how the big execs might think that cosmic horror, macroverse tortoises, 12 year old kids getting high and the ritual of chöad might not play well in the multiplexes, but it's pretty obvious that if you take that out all you're left with is a bunch of kids beating up a clown at the bottom of a sewer.

And even the bunch of kids beating up the clown in the sewer was handled better in the shonky 90s miniseries! Can’t be said enough that “Henry bowers falls down a thing or whatever and then the kids literally just hit it with sticks” is a lamer half-arsed ending than anything Stephen king ever came up with

Saw the new one, it’s bad

3 hours too. i'm seeing it tonight at a dine-in place and not drinking alcohol wah wahhh

three hours??? my god

Booooo

They screwed this one up, should've shot it and done a Kill Bill / LOTR shot & release of restructuring the story.

absolutely no reason you couldn't smartly condense the whole story to that length

Certainly when all the cgi monsters look exactly the same you don’t need to waste hours ticking off encounters with them

I mean I didn’t like the first one, these films were kinda doomed to mediocrity from the moment they chose to open with “eerie” kids singing bells of st clements, but the decisions being made in this one are just baffling. Just one example, they essentially do away with the presentation of the town itself as evil, but keep the Adrian Mellon prologue just for shits. They clearly had no idea what to do with this one and constantly fall back on spoofery, which is exhausting. And the final stretch is excruciating - worse than hitting the clown with sticks, worse than the ending of Gerald’s game, you honestly have to see it to believe it.

It’s a shame as there are a few scenes I really liked. This “Easter egg” shite gets worse all the time but I actually enjoyed the scene in the secondhand rose shop

I saw this and yeah, three freakin’ hours. What really adds to the bloat is that there are several scenes and plot threads carried over from the book that don’t make sense here at all. They just sort of happen and are forgotten about. It’s a bit irritating.

Just one example, they essentially do away with the presentation of the town itself as evil, but keep the Adrian Mellon prologue just for shits.

Yeah that pissed me off. So tone deaf. The Henry Bowers subplot doesn’t really have any reason to be in this version of the story, either.

There was no way I was going to see this after the first one. "Three hours" seals the deal. I'm curious but not that curious.

It's a new golden age of bloated three-hour Hollywood epics.

The way they handle the Ritual of Chud basically means thirty minutes of wasted subplot in this

Also agree on the final stretch. Very disappointed

also feel like they gave Mike back the 'history' aspect of his character, which makes you wonder why they took it away from him in the first one.

Honestly they fucked the setup “chapter” so badly that when he calls everyone & says “it’s mike hanlon from Derry” & they all go “...who?” you’re like, well yeah exactly

i didn't hate this though, i only started to lose interest midway through. esp when the whole totem-gathering sequence became completely pointless.

naked hot psycho grandma was fun tho

gotta say though, despite it being part of the original novel, the opening scene was pretty triggering, considering what happened in my hometown 3 years ago. tempted to warn my friends about it.

Xp It’s not wasted time if those scenes work tho, but imo none of them quite get there and they all end terribly cause this film whiffs the scares even more than part one

If 1 was “o no it’s that rascal penny wise, hope he doesn’t move really quickly at me and then disappear”, this is more “another dumb-looking cartoon with langolier teeth, how much more of this shit is there to go”

Mrs Kersh scene was really effective until they lost their nerve and turned her from spooky old lady to another one of those stupid things

God I just remembered that they did a comedy needle drop when the leper puked on Eddie in his (pointless, consequence free) encounter with it

I'm so fascinated by how profoundly bad these films are!

The audience I was with seemed to mainly enjoy it, lots of laughs (there are some good jokes in this tbf) but things like Patrick Hocksetter's appearance provoked the kind of incredulous laughter you do not want

The ending (which really is geralds game squared) did not get laughs of the "are they really doing this, are you fuckin kidding me" variety, weirdly

bullying a billion year old evil entity = the way to victory apparently.

given the trash talk of the kids in the first movie, they could have killed him permanently then.

The endings of both these films are so much worse than the end of the novel it's kind of hilarious - the running joke about Bill's books in this is particularly delicious cause sTepHeN kInG iS bAd aT eNdIngS is up there with qUeNtoN tArAnTiNo hAs a fEEt fEtiSh as far as basic bitch cultural commentary goes, & is therefore exactly at this film's level

It has an awesome ending tho

damn I wasn't trying to be spoiled but also not trying too hard to not be spoiled, w/e, prolly not gonna see it for another week at least, but lmfao they BULLY pennywise to death??? 😂

The book? I agree

xp

The end of this is purest kitsch and how they defeat It is not the half of it, what happens after is exquisitely bad

yeah the book

Can't wait to see this now

the old pharmacist randomly ripping farts as he walked away seemed like a weird inclusion

Oh flappy I hope you love it <3

I’ve tried not to be too spoilery as I want people to discover how terrible this is for themselves if they’re so inclined

I didn’t truly start getting angry at the movie until the climax. Before that I was at least intermittently entertained and had plenty of moments to step out to use the restroom.

Wish I could talk more about it without spoiling anything!

it's IT, innit? spoil away imho, just mark it as such

Okay SPOILERS for some of the worst bits of the ending:

There’s a badly directed and boring cgi action sequence that lasts like half an hour, with a giant pennywise who turns into a spider (but still with pennywise head) and the whole thing looks like something from the hobbit movies

The ritual of Chüd in this is some dumb nonsense that doesn’t work and then It throws them all into separate nightmare rooms to retread bits from the first one: Eddie and Richie do their (very wearisome by this point) routine in front of those fucking “not scary/scary” doors again; Bill has the exact same scene of being accused by Georgie in the cellar; Bev is trapped in the bathroom stall with nothing to do; Ben uhh something to do with quicksand I think? Mike doesn’t even get one lol this film hates him

(How Ben and Bev escape their rooms is some amazing cringe but I’ll leave it for someone else to spoil)

Anyway eddie gets given this spike thing by Bev who tells him “this kills monsters if you only believe in it” - turns out she stitched him right up cause it doesn’t work and it kills Eddie. In his dying breath Eddie explains that the way to kill it is to make it transform into something small and vulnerable as it is bound by the physical form it takes (this idea does come from the book, it’s how they are able to hurt werewolf-it with silver) but again Eddie is as full of shit as Bev was and this doesn’t work either. Eventually they come up with the idea of just yelling at It “you dumb bad clown” and the hurtful remarks literally belittle it and they squash its heart

Saving the worst for last: in the epilogue, everyone is living their best life and it’s revealed that they are not losing their memory again as happens in the book because It is definitively dead. They all receive a letter from Stan, who tells them that his suicide was a cunning plan to help them defeat pennywise, as he knew he wouldn’t have the courage to face up to it when it came to the crunch and if he came back he would bring the other losers down. By “taking himself off the board” he ensured their victory. Mike goes to Florida/dies on the way to his home planet

What is that happy crappy?

The making Pennywise small scene reminded me of the scene at the end of 2004s Peter Pan where the Lost Boys kill Hook by making him depressed

https://media.giphy.com/media/lTeDekrrolf6o/giphy.gif

I saw this last night and it was a Good Bad Movie, I will not be taking questions at this time.

direct me now to the many good epilogues in movies

oh also this movie had a brazen steal from Carpenter's "The Thing" that made me laugh and clap.

I saw this last night and it was a Good Bad Movie, I will not be taking questions at this time.

― I don't get wet because I am tall and thin and I am afraid of people (Eliza D.), Tuesday, September 10, 2019 6:01 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the take i was waiting for

I wouldn't have thought it would be too difficult to make a better version of the network miniseries featuring a slew of TV actors but I guess it actually is difficult.

I rewatched the miniseries a little while back and at least the first half held up surprisingly well. I don't think I need to see the new ones as it sounds like many of the decisions they made would aggravate me to no end.

The endings of both these films are so much worse than the end of the novel it's kind of hilarious

wait so they manage to be WORSE than a prepubescent orgy

i saw the first chapter (lol) the other day and like part one of the miniseries i thought it was pretty good! without the adult timeline it's a little like the goonies vs. evil clown but i could get down with the vibe. gonna start cleaning my bathroom to "six different ways." hated the camera-shaking scares though

I did enjoy the first volume a lot.

though the pacing did annoy me, it kept feeling like they were shuttling these characters into different scare zones. i hear it's even worse wrt part two

xp

That was my problem. I never was a fan of the haunted house jump scare parts, but there were fewer of them in the first volume. I connected more with the coming of age story.

It: Chapter Two (2019)
(dir. Andy Muschietti) pic.twitter.com/nMmxlmzE5w

— Simpsons Films (@simpsonsfilms) September 10, 2019

wins is otm that this was really bad, yet somehow i enjoyed it. i think it was just the overall vibe of "adults who were childhood friends get back together and rekindle the flame of first love," i'll take a shot of that no matter how poor the quality.

basically like The Big Chill crossed w/The Thing, there's even a suicide at the beginning.

that sounds like it would resonate with a lot of people but it definitely does not resonate with me

i guess i am the opposite of map when it comes to this i think it was just the overall vibe of "adults who were childhood friends get back together and rekindle the flame of first love," in that i am basically not interested under any circumstances.

not that it matters what i think or what i like -- It has a life of its own!

lol they were running the preview for this before MIDSOMMAR and at first I didn't recognize it and was all "huh this quiet scene with the creepy old lady in her house actually seems p cool" but then they showed the clown and I was like "oh hell no"

You were all about the naked crazy old lady?

wins is otm that this was really bad, yet somehow i enjoyed it. i think it was just the overall vibe of "adults who were childhood friends get back together and rekindle the flame of first love," i'll take a shot of that no matter how poor the quality.

direct me now to the many good epilogues in movies

they are all in Wild Things (1998)

You were all about the naked crazy old lady?

tbh... yes

actually it's gerontophilia

lol

somehow i enjoyed it. i think it was just the overall vibe of "adults who were childhood friends get back together and rekindle the flame of first love," i'll take a shot of that no matter how poor the quality.

This is basically where I'm at wrt "Chapter 2" also. What makes IT one of the only King books that still kinda has its hooks in me is the both-sides-now child-adult mirroring, with both halves regretting something they don't have yet/anymore. In any case, this one ditches almost all the Stranger Things shit that ruined the first part, so advantage belongs with this one.

Also, yes, scary fast hot naked booby granny gross tango was a highlight.

Also, Mike spiking Bill's water with root -- "What did you do to me?!"

Also, everything everyone negative to say about bullying Pennywise until he turns into Rubber Johnny and sheds copious tears of a murderous clown clearly has never read a single page from the legendarily and lovably embarrassing bibliography of one Stephen King.

Also, production values are entirely too high tbh.

Also, much hotter "not fat anymore" Ben than the ABC mini, even if his chemistry with the rest of the cast is at the level of a hologram.

Also, Xavier Dolan using his last dying breaths to make a joke about his gay basher's mullet looking like a Meg Ryan wig is chef's kiss, and only one of two anti-mullet punchlines made by someone badly wounded.

Also, I don't care what anyone else has to say on this, the curious decision to turn Richie urp-prone Trashmouth into a closeted homo carrying a torch for the somehow straight mama's boy Eddie inhaler-sucking Kaspbrak, and unveiling that plot point vis-a-vis a needle-drop appearance by Pennywise goading Richie into a game of Truth or Dare, and watching this all play out in a movie theater while sitting next to a straight childhood friend with whom I also experienced my first erections in the presence of another dude from sleepover games of "reluctant" Truth or Dare (emphasis on Dare), was let's just say a moment.

But yes, the endings sucked.

wins relentlessly otm on this thread esp here:

Nothing is allowed to matter

even torture porn horror schlock allows characters to present themselves as traumatized by the shit they're going through: they get jumpy, they become hyper-vigilant, they become constantly reactive to the possibility of further insult. tobe hooper was great at this -- once a person sees some truly soul-altering shit, he/she doesn't just start cracking wise five minutes later with the threat still present. nothing against good horror wisecracks but once you're down the well in this movie, you are fucked up, and you're going to be fucked up for a long time. nothing here seems to touch anybody, unless it kills them.

but it's also a good bad movie as eliza d. says: a fun watch with a bunch of dumb shit, like all the cheap 80s horror movies I love. And Skarsgard is fucking glorious, every minute he spends onscreen is a gift.

I am otm but probably too relentlessly sometimes - as a person who will rewatch thinner I am glad some people are enjoying this bad movie 🙂 I can see myself maybe softening on it over time as long as I never have to watch it again

Re the “curious decision” to make Richie the gay one (was trying not to spoil this earlier as it’s a surprising choice that actually works), I strongly suspect either that this was made after casting Hader or that the filmmakers were just big Richie fans - that actor/character is given the only interesting stuff to do p much. One of the more egregious examples of “nothing can matter” is the losers being surprised to see Richie grieve their friend who died horribly minutes before. It’s a good moment for him but shouldn’t those guys give a shit as well?

The mook they got to play hunky Ben = total void

I liked the first "chapter" for the engaging performances from the child actors and because it hit my 80s nostalgia sweet spot. Chapter 2 is three hours of expensive-looking CGI.

Otm

Yep. Tried watching the second one twice, fell asleep both times.

I stand by most of what I wrote (while buzzed) above but have no desire to ever watch it again, to be clear.

Ok, I did laugh at the King and Bogdanovich cameos.

Chapter 2 was definitely a chore

it was an assload of fuck