Admittedly, horror isn’t my cup of tea. That being said, every so often we get treated to a film that transcends the genre. Movies like Silence of the Lambs, The Shining, and Get Out.  With the reviews starting to pour in, It seems to be quickly rising to that level. That kind of buzz should leave any cine-file curious to see this Stephen King adaptation. 

     Right off the bat, the story of It makes it ripe to become more than just another jump scare horror movie. The plot is much more reliant on the relationships and characterization of the kids rather than the shock value of it all. Being in a world where things like Stand By Me, The Goonies, and Stranger Things permeate all levels of pop culture, people are naturally curious to see more stories about precocious young kids exploring a mystery that plagues their town. That’s at least what initially hooked me into seeing It. Relying so heavily on the interplay between its group of misfits, leaves the movie wide open to explore a lot of complex themes that give another level of depth to the story. However, it also makes it heavily reliant on the chemistry of its cast. If that doesn’t work, the whole film is doomed.

     Luckily, the cast of kids makes the group just believable enough to set the film up for success. They’re a ways away from being as great as The Stranger Things crew we were treated to last year but they still get the job done. It is completely focused on the kids, even more than expected and that’s were it hits its stride. The strongest parts of the movie all come from seeing the characters experience the pains that anyone has growing up. It’s when the film reaches its most poignant and grounded moments. Another thing It does impressively well is playing into the fears that we all have as kids. Walking into a dark basement alone is one of the scariest things you can think of as an 8 year old. All the creaking and weird sounds you here convince you that something else is down there and all you want is to run back up stairs as fast as you can. That feeling is successfully captured multiple times throughout the movie.

     Despite those strengths, this book to film adaptation isn’t without its flaws and it does have quite a few. In this weird world were horror films are made for pennies, a $30+ million budget is big and it shows. A lot of the major horror set pieces feel bloated and too over the top. Strangely enough, that money didn’t go into the special effects because they are terrible in this film. Look out for the rock fight scene particular.

     A main component of an It adaptation is Pennywise. The character digs into a classic childhood fear that clowns are killer monsters. While, it isn’t necessarily the filmmakers fault, he takes you out of the movie. The crew did a good job bringing the character to life but it’s very difficult to seamlessly integrate a boldly painted clown in a story grounded in reality. Maybe it’s just something that could never feel completely integrated.

     As mentioned earlier, many of It’s early reviews peg it as a horror tale that reaches above the genre. To me, that wasn’t the case. A film like Silence of the Lambs blends its dramatic and horror elements so well that the divide between the two gets blurred. It, on the other hand, has a clear line drawn between its horror and more dramatic scenes. 

     It also has plenty of bothersome story points. Having not read the novel, I’m not sure how true of an adaptation this movie is. Regardless, whether my problems lie in what does or doesn't come directly from the book, they still detract from the film. The kid characters in It are extremely smart. They realize and talk about a lot of pretty deep and complex ideas that life entails, many of which you don’t notice until later in life. At the same time, they are complete idiots in the horror sequences. It’s hard to believe that when a kid feels very unsafe, they’re going to walk towards what’s frightening them rather than running away as fast as humanly possible. Nothing seems to phase them either. There’s some pretty horrific deaths, not even by the hands of Pennywise, and they don’t bat an eye at it. They always seem willing to creep themselves out more and more even though they keep complaining about it every time. In addition to those plot issues, It is a movie very focused on realism while also being very fantastical. By the end, the divide between the two is so uncertain that it really gets annoying. What’s real and what’s fake is impossible to discern and while that can be a strength in a story, here it detracts from the enjoyment. Besides that, there’s some other ending plot point that feels extremely cheesy in a movie that seems to stray away from that for the most part.

     If you’re not an avid fan of horror and are hoping It will be a movie that even you can enjoy, I’m not sure that’ll be the case. 5.5/10