IT REVIEW

After children have been going mysteriously missing, a group of kids unite together while facing their worst and terrifying nightmares-and confront an evil, shape shifting clown.

Most of the time, I find horror films ineffectual and substandard. While they may have the occasional jump scare, are still predictable and lack an intriguing story line. There have been only a couple where I would go away thinking that it was a good film.

This was one of them.

Horror films involving monsters and the supernatural can sometimes be overdone or work to hard on making the audience scream, while lacking a well thought out story. Something which was (and I rarely say this) perfect, was the structure. From scene to scene when it kept flipping from a clip which would have the audience holding their breath to more ‘relaxed’ scenes and it helped the plot progress. There was also plenty of room for character development starting from the introduction to all the scenes including main characters to the ending. Sometimes films do lack any character development, especially horror movies which can be unsatisfactory for someone in the audience. It flourished in this with every individual being interesting and developing as the film progressed.

Unfortunately, a couple of scenes ruined it for me. One example is the final scene where all the children were fighting Pennywise. Firstly, I think that the entire scene dragged on too long and wasn’t really moving forward. Secondly, it was so unnecessarily violent. I understand what the genre is meant to be like, but became meaningless and extraneous after a while. Also, the scene when they were all in the garage and Pennywise appeared while growing ruined it for me. That part when he was growing seemed very needless and when he kept appearing in the photos, seemed a bit to much like something from a horror movie in the 80’s.

The acting was absolutely brilliant though. Although  a lot of it involved screaming and looking scared, each one was to realistic and is evident that they will all go somewhere in their acting careers.

What surprised me, was how at the end Part 1 appeared on the screen. When they make a sequel and maybe even more, I do hope it’s not one each year (like with Star Wars 😦 ) and keep the quality up to the standard it has been while not glamorizing it too much for Hollywood.