Film Review ~ IT

Yesterday, I believe was the opening day of the film IT in Cinemas. After seeing the adverts circulating the internet lately, my friends and I decided that it was a film that we had to see. And being a person myself that loves horror movies and others of a similar genre, I had high expectations for the film.

The film IT is an attempt by Andre Muschiettis to recreate the earlier adaptation of Stephen King's work. The earlier adaptation was created by Rob Reiner in 1986. I have not yet seen the earlier version for comparison but I have heard from friends of mine that the two films are almost exactly the same.

The film focuses on a group of pre-adolescent children in a small town. Each of these children has had a hard background for various reasons. For example one of the children has an abusive father and one mother is very over-protective of her son to the point that it is extreme. Also the children are frequently referred to in the movie as losers or outsiders. This is the primary reason that they are brought together in the first place.

In the film there is a shape-shifting killer clown that the children refer to as "IT". The clown plays off the children's fear which they have accumulated through each of their own personal experiences from their home lives. This makes me begin to assume that the Clown is a representation of the fear in their lives which they are all needing to face up to in order for it to have no power anymore.

The children in the film are taunted by IT on numerous occasions so they decide to take it upon themselves to see what he is and to see if they could ever take IT down.

In my opinion the film was good but there were certain aspects of it that let it down. For example, there were jump scares repeatedly to a point where had no power at all. There is also a large romance cliché between two of the main two protagonists which in my eyes was not needed. The film although effective was also not scary in my eyes. This may be down to the fact that I watch horror movies a lot though. But if you are scared of clowns you may indeed hate this film.

Overall, I think that the film is definitely worth a watch because the friendship that develops amount the children is charming and also witty. I would also advise bringing a friend that is easily scared as it makes the experience even more enjoyable.