In a Nutshell

Set 27 years after the events of the previous film, the loser’s club are summoned back to their home town of Derry to finish their fight with the evil Pennywise. 

Review

There’s a recurring joke that runs throughout It: Chapter Two regarding the character of Bill – who has become a writer – and his inability to write an effective ending. After 2 hours and 49 minutes, I can confirm that the joke is seemingly self-referential.

I should begin this review by stating that I was quite a fan of the first chapter of It (2017), although it did take two viewings to reach this conclusion. It was far from perfect (then again, even the book is not without flaws) but overall the film really created a beautiful mix of horror, humour, nostalgia and sentiment.

The central performance of Pennywise by Bill Skarsgard was exemplary and has deservedly achieved pop culture status. Benjamin Wallfisch’s score perfectly balanced all the tonal requirements of the adapted script and director Andy Muschietti succeeded in updating the classic story to a new, post-Stranger Things generation.

So, it was with high expectations and higher hopes that I took my seat in an advanced screening of It: Chapter Two (2019).

The film is the second part of the battle of the loser’s club with the amorphous antagonist that we commonly know as Pennywise. The losers are now in their 40s and, with the exception of Mike, have left Derry for greener pastures.

In the interim, each character has achieved varying degrees of success in life and all but forgotten about their past encounter in the summer of 1989. Almost a happy ending… until Mike discovers that Pennywise has returned and they are called to fulfil their promise, confront the past and return home to defeat IT once and for all.

The opening sequence of It: Chapter Two is filled with promise and depicts a scene from the book that was absent from the 1990 miniseries directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. It is an effective and sometimes distressing scene that serves as a great reintroduction to Pennywise.

However, it never reaches the iconography, chills or suspense of the infamous storm drain scene from It (2017). This kind of sets the tone really…

The film is not without positive aspects. There are some very effective, individual set pieces that are held together by an all-round excellent cast. Special credit should, of course, be given to Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise who builds upon his performance in chapter one and somehow makes Pennywise all the more menacing and threatening in this instalment.

Even the massive run time does not seem to be overlong which is an achievement in itself.

However, like the sewers of Derry, there are deep problems that run beneath the surface of the film. One is undoubtedly the conflict between where the script adheres to and then chooses to depart from the source material. You may know that the first film chose to do away with the juxtaposition between the child and adult characters that structured the novel and the original miniseries back in 1990.

What this afforded the filmmakers was the opportunity to focus solely on the younger losers in 1989. This brought with it a real sense of nostalgia and heart when we watched the children face their fears and take their first steps into young adulthood, a theme that permeates many of Stephen King’s works.

In chapter two the screenplay chooses to depict this juxtaposition and while this brings with it some nice scenes and beautiful writing, overall the film suffers by becoming episodic and essentially a rehash of old territory. 

As a fan of the novel moments of departure from the source material also makes key scenes and characters obsolete and their motivations and are no longer clear or sometimes necessary. Furthermore, this inclusion of extra material from chapter one results in the film never really feeling like a cohesive, continuing story.

Secondly, I would like to discuss the film’s overabundance of computer-generated effects in the scares.  As a respectful fan of the genre, I know that horror only works if the viewer is wholly invested in the sequence. This means that the visual aesthetic, sound, editing and performance must work in tandem in order to effectively scare the audience.

A weak link in any of the chain results in the viewer being distracted and taken out of the moment of impact. Unfortunately, there is an abundance of such moments in It: Chapter Two.

As I have previously said, Bill Skarsgard’s performance is perfect and to me, it is undeniable that the actor’s voice, body language and sheer dedication have resulted in a formidable and tactile screen foe and presence. It is a performance that, in my opinion, does not need enhancement and therefore it is so disappointing to see the presentation augmented by such unconvincing CGI.

To me, and seemingly many of the people around me, this serves only to distract the audience and pull us out of a potential scare. This was particularly evident in a shot depicted in the trailer which shows Pennywise wagging his tongue in a manner reminiscent of the famous puppy Snapchat filter. At numerous times in the screening, screams were often replaced by confusion or, even worse, laughs.

Which brings me nicely to the main problem with It: Chapter Two. While it is true that chapter one had a fair share of humour, it always struck me that it was a horror movie with moments of comedy.

Unfortunately, in chapter two, the pendulum has swung very, very far in the direction of humour. While the dialogue and performance of Bill Hader are natural moments for comedic relief, the wit of individual set pieces is far more overstated and less effective than those of films like The Evil Dead (1981).

Indeed, I remarked at the end of the screening that there are scenes that would seem at home in any of the Scary Movie instalments. There are not so subtle references to other films, other works by Stephen King and misplaced cameos that ultimately seem to descend the film into a state of self-parody. For those of us that wanted one of the most iconic horror stories of our time to be scary, this is a disappointment indeed.

In truth that is how I feel about the film as a whole. Like many parents of the past, present and future, I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed. The effectiveness of the preceding chapter and the promise inherent in the possibilities of the new film filled me with excitement and expectation of what could be a defining chapter in this generation of horror cinema.

For those of us that felt this way, it pains me to report that, like the character of Bill, IT: Chapter Two really can’t nail the ending which unfortunately makes it, in the end, a missed opportunity.

Verdict

Although there are some terrific set-pieces and performances, ultimately the emphasis on humour, departures from the source material and abundance of unconvincing CGI make for a movie that almost becomes a parody of itself. For a horror fan, I find it a missed opportunity.