IT

What I like most about IT is that it doesn’t just feel like a horror film about a killer clown. There’s actually a story underneath all of it. The Losers Club actually feel like a bunch of kids who would hang around together. They make fun of each other argue over things and constantly wind each other up. They care about each other. That chemistry carries a lot of the movie because there are quite a few scenes where Pennywise isn’t around and I never found myself waiting for him to come back.

Each of the kids has their problems well. Bill is still trying to deal with Georgie disappearing, Beverly has her home life, Ben is getting bullied, Eddie has been made terrified of pretty much everything and Mike has his own trauma hanging over him. Pennywise is basically just finding the cracks that're already there and making them worse.

The opening with Georgie is easily one of the best scenes in the film. You already know Pennywise is bad news. The whole conversation through the drain feels wrong before anything has even happened. Bill Skarsgård does an amazing job as Pennywise. His version feels completely inhuman like something trying to copy what a clown should look and sound like without getting it right. The eyes, the smile and the way he moves make him ridiculously creepy. I do still prefer Tim Curry though. Curry’s Pennywise felt more believable to me because there were moments where he almost looked like a clown. He didn’t need loads of effects or strange movements to make you uncomfortable. Sometimes he could just stand there smiling. That was enough. Skarsgård is probably the scarier version but Curry is still the one I find creepier.

That also ties into one of my problems with this film. Whenever IT keeps things simple it works well. When Pennywise is standing at the end of a room or quietly talking to someone he’s scary. When he suddenly becomes massive and starts charging towards the camera with loads of CGI going on I think it loses something. Not every scare needs to be bigger than the last one. The projector scene is an exception because that whole sequence is brilliant. The build up is great everyone knows something is going wrong. Then Pennywise comes bursting out at them. That scene actually earns the moment.

The humour works too. Richie gets most of the laughs. There’s a lot of funny stuff, between the whole group. It stops the film becoming completely miserable and makes the kids much easier to like. That’s probably why the film holds up well for me. It’s not just people wandering around waiting for the jump scare. There’s friendship, bullying, grief, family problems and all the usual growing up stuff mixed in with this thing trying to eat them. It feels like a coming of age story that just happens to have Pennywise in it I still prefer Tim Curry's Pennywise but as an overall film I think IT 2017 is probably the stronger version of the story.