When it comes to the horror genre, natural expectation of general audience is to get scared, which is fair. On this account, almost every appearance by Pennywise the Dancing Clown was horrifying! The getup, furious leg dance, transformation from a kid, extended set of teeth that could wide open more and Bill Skarsgård's top class performance really stood out! The way the clown jitters and walks towards you itself alarms sheer terror!
Speaking of terror, there were strong sequences written to squeeze a scream out of the spectators. Headless body chase followed by a howl of "egg boy", It biting off Georgie's arm and extending its own to pull the boy towards the sewer, librarian lady standing still and smiling at the background while Ben's (Jeremy Ray Taylor) flipping through the pages of Derry's horror history, Pennywise emerging in a slideshow photo presentation before popping out of the projector, Beverly (Sophia Lillis) using a measuring tape to investigate a sink hole, 3 labelled doors, Pennywise eating a kid's hand, slaughterhouse illusion, Pennywise folding out his body off the closet to confront Eddie in the hallway followed by a group attack and a pierce through It's head, room full of clown statues and the climax battle were very well done!
Let's talk about the main constituents that make up a motion picture irrespective of the genre. Plot wise, you'll realize it's taking a multi-strand pattern to introduce various characters experiencing paranormal sightings before converging to solve the main mystery. But each of it were nothing more than just frightening events. There were no developments achieved in terms of character or plot for quite a chunk of the runtime. For example, Eddie just stayed normal after seeing a zombie and clown after him the day before. It just didn't make any sense!
Coupled with the stiff and unnatural acting performances by all of the child artists especially Jack Dylan Grazer who played asthmatic Eddie and except Jaeden Lieberher as Bill, you just don't feel the emotions or friendship among this bunch of kids! Dialogues were thick and inaccessible! How are we, the audience, supposed to root for a team of buddies who choose to bail out on each other at almost every instance? Due to this, the sense of adventure was also missing!
Funny because, Finn Wolfhard who played Richie in this film, played another 80s kid in The Duffer Brothers' Stranger Things. Although Stranger Things is a tribute to and huge inspiration of 80s pop culture elements including Stephen Kings' novels, particularly It, the series did a way better job in crafting friendship between young men! This has nothing got to do with the length of the show. It's all in the writing! In It, Finn Wolfhard depicted a character who jokes at any given time, whether it makes sense or not. And that's about it. We know nil about this wooden persona.
At first, we saw the picture's story potential. Something's haunting the town. There's a dark past lurking around. Due to kids constantly disappearing, there's heavy awareness in the area. Curfews were implemented. But that's about it. At the end, we never knew why was the town like that or what happened in the past. Who's the clown? Was he a normal human who turned out to be a demonized evil supernatural being or what? I guess we'll never figure out. It is this journey that the film should have explored! This is where the meat is! We are here to uncover the mystery! Instead, the writers just threw random exposition lines which didn't help convey any relevant information to move the story and plot forward. No one is going to care about a sequel that's releasing at a later time without this standalone film having a firm ground first! Each feature should be valid by being able to stand on its own without any sort of dependence towards others.
Too many locations were shown, ranging from the sewer, a haunted house, forest to cellar. It felt choppy and inorganic. These portions did not fit well as one cohesive movie. Everything came off as distinct parts. The same can be said about the myriad types of mystical beings used such as clowns, Japanese crooked lady and zombies! The filmmakers were really desperate to use everything they have in hand to scare us, as it appeared, regardless of it making sense or not. A fair amount of time should have been spent to patch all these together and weave it like a fine tapestry. It's understandable that Pennywise was trying to feed on vulnerable kids who faced troublesome childhood, unforgettable tragedy, issues with parents or bullying in school, but even this only had partial visual effectiveness. Ben and Bill having interest on the same girl was cute, but even this wasn't solved in the end for the former.
While the bathroom harassment and Henry (Nicholas Hamilton) being presented the lost knife to murder his father were excellent scenes, rocks war and hang-out by the river drastically created an unevenness in the overall targeted tone. Characters walking into the Well House knowingly and persistently, only to adamantly insist on leaving later was pretty stupid. Also, not sure why Mrs. K (Molly Atkinson), an adult, behaved awkwardly towards Bevvy, a teenager. It wasn't realistic.
Colors utilized for the warm yet sad & bleak look were fitting. Movie title text hanging like a balloon and usage of lights to highlight water in eyes were nice touches. How do you instill fear among viewers when the Well House looked obviously like a set design? Hanging bodies in the well skyrocketing upwards was a splendid job though!