IT Trailer Thoughts

IT is one of my favourite Stephen King books and I remember watching the original television miniseries (1990) with Tim Curry. Although Curry was undoubtedly creepy I didn’t find the film that scary overall, not only due to some dated effects but also due to the general failure of creating a terrifying atmosphere.

This trailer legitimately gave me chills, teasing glimpses of Pennywise and the kids he terrifies in the story.

Child actors always worry me, especially when they are carrying a movie. From what we see here, it looks like the acting might not be disastrous. Finn Wolfhard, from Stranger Things, did a pretty good job in that show so I am hoping he and his peers bring the same level of talent to this film.

On a side note, Georgie hitting his head on the road block might come across as an unintentionally funny moment for some, but I was just focusing on the fact that we see “Derry” painted across it.

Firstly, I love the fact that this trailer didn’t rely on jump scares. There is one when we get our first glimpse of Pennywise, but this more expected scare is followed up with a truly chilling moment.The projector scene actually got my heart racing and so did the final “you’ll float too” scene.

However, I do wish the trailer would have ended after we see Pennywise’s eyes emerge from beneath the water. I feel like the last shot of him bursting forth should have been saved for the movie, or perhaps another trailer.

It has also been confirmed that the film is Rated R so it looks like the director and writers aren’t scared to fully embrace the mayhem from King’s pages. Since the entire bible of IT is being adapted into one film, it does bring up issues of how much of the story will need to be cut in order to accommodate the film’s length.

Edit: It appears this film will only focus on the Losers Club. The part of the story focused on the adults will come in the second film.

Director Andres Muschietti is coming off a relatively strong film in Mama, in my opinion. Mama also created good scares, mostly relying on atmosphere and chilling moments, instead of jump scares. However, the third act was by far the weakest. Mama was partially done with prosthetics, but some details, such as her face were clearly computer generated for some scenes.  Mama was exposed for the camera, revealing poorly rendered special effects and the third act didn’t provide the same level of scares the first two did.

It’s third act is often criticized as generic, or somewhat of a letdown in comparison to the first two as well. I am hoping that the writers find a way to end the film strong, because it looks like we might have a truly terrifying film coming our way.