If being a kid is about being scared of the dark, mummies and the Tyrannosaurus Rex from Jurassic Park, then adulthood is realizing that there are far more real and present dangers to be afraid of. Sometimes those fears are tangible and sometimes those fears take the shape of secrets being revealed. Both fears are real, and both are weapons for Pennywise the Clown in Andy Muschietti’s IT: Chapter Two. However, these fears are played on to varying effect in IT: Chapter Two, even if the scares deliver.
27 years after his seeming defeat at the hands of the Losers Club, Pennywise has returned and brought with him more darkness and hatred to infect the small town of Derry, Maine. True to their promise after their last fight with the evil clown, the Losers return to Derry to fulfill their blood oath to one another and finish off Pennywise once and for all. Each of them have difficulty remembering their childhood and why they feel the need to return to Derry, but soon discover what it is that has drawn them back.
IT: Chapter Two has a tall order to fill in that it is the sequel to the highest-grossing horror film of all time, 2017’s wildly popular IT. I mean, how do you even follow up a film like what we got two years ago? IT is brilliant for so many different reasons. From the excellent ensemble child cast to Bill Skarsgård’s brilliant take on Pennywise, the film feels fresh and nostalgic all at the same time. It’s true to the book (as much as a movie can be to a book the size of IT), but the characters feel real and we as the audience relate to their fears because we remember being scared of those same things.
Speaking of the book, IT: Chapter Two also faces the challenge of adapting what most consider to be the inferior parts of the book. In Stephen King’s “It”, the coming-of-age story of the Losers Club is most fun, most enjoyable and just about everyone’s favorite part of the book. But the best part of the adult parts of the book is the exploration of how childhood fears often evolve into reality for adults.
All of us have moments in our lives that have fed into or been the cause of our fears. Some of us outgrow certain fears, but other fears change and evolve. While IT deals with those fears from a child’s perspective, IT: Chapter Two chooses not to deal with the fallout of children’s fears, but to look at how fears evolve for adults. Because adults are scared of things too. Whether its the fear of losing someone you love, loving someone you fear, or fear of how you love, all of those fears are explored in the film.
Where IT: Chapter Two struggles is in its reliance on flashbacks and the child versions of the actors. For me, the most frustrating part of the film is that the adult casting is astoundingly good, particularly for Eddie, Richie, and Stanley, but we do spend a lot of time with the kids being scared by Pennywise. There are a lot of real adult fears that the Losers Club is dealing with in their adult lives, but those are set aside for most of the film so that we can retread the same fears we saw in the first film.
Outside of that, the film’s scares pretty much land consistently. It is far more bloody and, for many, might be scarier than the first film, as IT: Chapter Two maintains constant fearful tension. Each moment feels like another tightening of the screw, making the audience feel like Pennywise could jump out at any moment. While the scares don’t quite reach the heights of IT’s brilliant projector scene, I loved just about each one, including an homage to John Carpenter’s The Thing that had me grinning from ear to ear.
As previously mentioned, the cast is great and acting is well done. While Bill Skarsgård stole the show in 2017’s IT, Bill Hader is the one that lights up the screen in this one. He’s given the best lines to work with and you can tell that he spent quite a bit of time studying Finn Wolfhard’s version of Richie Tozier’s character. Even as he careens towards a probably Emmy win for his HBO show Barry, Hader is delivering the goods in IT: Chapter Two and brings a performance that never feels over-the-top but perfect in just about every way.
For big fans of the source material, like myself, don’t expect the most faithful book adaptation. IT only took about ⅓ of the book for its script, which leaves a massive chunk of that book to develop for the screen. As such, the story takes some liberties for the screen that, I felt, still landed. It’s not as smooth as its predecessor, but IT: Chapter Two is an adaptation of King’s nearly impossible source material that will have you screaming and smiling.
RATING: B-
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