IT Review

I went to see 'IT' armed ready with the criticism of the film not being scary enough and tried to view it as suggested; a mildly chilling adventure story. The problem with changing my point of view to suit this film was however that I could really sense the makers trying like a dad in a Halloween costume to scare the audience. Since the films monster lives and thrives of fear it seemed strange to me that the film itself didn't engage the concept of generating suspense. There were many moments where the changing manifestation of IT would pop out of nowhere and try and be 'scary' with out the tense lead up and I just wasn't buying it. My immersion was ruined during these sequences with thoughts like 'this is a person in a costume doing a silly walk'. I think it was definitely a fault of the film to show too much and too quickly. I was really hoping for the 'breath on the back of the neck' atmosphere that you get in horror films when the evil force can't quite be fully seen but you know they are about to strike. There were definitely problems with the script. Whilst I found many of the characters endearing and watchable; I did find that I wasn't convinced by many of the characters reactions. Moments after something grotesquely horrific happened the characters seemed to make miraculous emotional recoveries! The film had the sensibility of a cheesy 80's quest film but without the charm of it being actually made in the the 80's. If this film was made a few decades ago, i'd probably have grown up with it fondly ignoring the errors only it wasn't and therefore I cannot ignore the clunky flow of the film, the lack of fear and the cheese on toast that was the dialogue. As much as this film wasn't for me I do have to praise how it kept me entertained even when sceptical as the worst thing a film can be is boring and 'IT' never was. I thought there was an amazing craft behind appearance of 'IT' as he was beautifully Gothic like a Pagliacci clown, and was impressively striking every time he appeared! I also really enjoyed the performance of Sophie Lilis who had a captivating charm about her and I thought her challenging range of emotions where convincing. What 'IT' does have going for it; is a really great score and an empowering message about strength, bravery and the importance of uniting.