It (2017)

First things first: I understand that Coulrophobia is a legitimate thing, and people like John Wayne Gacy didn’t help, and there was that whole clown thing in the news a couple of years ago, and a LOT of people were afraid of clowns because of Tim Curry’s performance in the 1990 miniseries. And, to be fair, Bill Skarsgard is creepy in a lot of the movie and there are some genuine scenes where he’s legitimately frightening. Having said all of that, though, I understand why Pennywise takes the form of a clown: he’s a joke.

When I first saw this movie in theaters two years ago, I spent more time laughing that I did shuddering in terror. Pennywise has a slightly creepy design, sure, but he’s still a clown and, no matter what (for me, at least) he’s always gonna be a little silly. And the voice does not help make him creepy. As a matter of fact, I distinctly recall that, upon hearing “Hiya, Georgie,” for the first time, I burst out laughing. I hoped that the voice was just for the opening scene to entice Georgie into the sewer, but Pennywise does it throughout the whole movie. I’m sorry, but it completely reduces the tension of just about any scene that Pennywise is in, and that ridiculous dance that he does in the climax does not help. His baubles even jingle. It’s like watching Freddy Krueger post-first film. There’s a line between showing a maniacal demon playing with his food like a little kid and just plain silly. Unfortunately, Pennywise crossed the line for me and all I could do what laugh.

The other thing that bothers me about the clown, and as a direct contrast to Krueger, is that he’s not really that much of a threat when you think about it. Aside from Georgie, the generic bully henchman with Kylo Ren hair, and the off-screen Betty Ripsom, Pennywise doesn’t kill anyone in the film. Krueger, to his credit, knew to pick off the characters one by one when they were alone, or at their most vulnerable, and he always followed through. He plays with his food and eats it too. Pennywise doesn’t. He simply scares the bejesus out of them and flees before finishing the job. Not that I’m rooting for Pennywise to win or that I’m for kid killing in movies, but the point of the monster in a movie is to instill fear in the viewer. For me, Pennywise does a very lackluster job. Sure, he turns into what the children fear most, but at best, that makes him a discount boggart. He’s even defeated the same way as Krueger and the Boggart: take away his power by rising above your fear.

The only scene that Pennywise, as himself, really scared me in the film was during the slide projector scene where he’s suddenly a giant. That scene begins innocently enough and builds to a wonderful climax. It still suffers, however, from the desire that Pennywise has to play with his food over actually killing it. There are a bunch of other things in the movie that are much scarier and creepier than he is; the headless corpse, the painting of the flute lady, and even Henry Bowers.

That kid is terrifying. Now, granted, I would like to believe that people that psychotic in this day and age are getting the help that they need or the imprisonment that they deserve, or at least that their parents are more vigilant about their children, but the reality of the situation is that people like that still exist, and we aren’t any closer to getting them fixed on a global scale. To me, the idea of a madmen breaking into my house is much scarier to me than the idea of a demonic clown.

And that would’ve been enough to make us terrified for him, but we also see that he’s a layered character. In the first scene with Bowers, we see him back away from Bill after seeing his father approach, thus allowing us to glimpse the fear that lives inside Bowers. Then, later, we get a scene where it’s cleared up why he’s afraid of his dad. It adds a layer of complexity that we don’t often get to see in bullies. And you see that fear again during the rock war scene. At the very end, when he’s lost to the Losers and is on the ground, you can see the pain in his face: a mixture of fear, self-pity, and on the verge of tears. Pennywise’ manipulation of Henry is one of the few things that the clown actually does well: It preys on his fears in a different way that the others, empowering his psychopathy and encouraging him to kill. And just like all bullies, he seeks to gain power from dominating over those that have none. He wants power over his father, so he kills him while he’s sleeping and feels the surge of adrenaline that he mistranslates as power. He tries to kill the Losers to regain his power over them but fails because they’ve learned not to be afraid of him (drawing parallels between their plot lines with Henry and with Pennywise).

Henry killing his father because of his abusive nature raises another interesting point: Every single adult in this town is either confirmed or heavily hinted at being something horrible: The town pharmacist? Potential pedophile; Beverly’s dad? He’s definitely emotionally abusive (if not sexually abusive); the old lady at the start who sees Georgie peering into her drain, as well as the old couple that drive past Ben getting carved up? Neglectful of child endangerment. Now, I understand that the book goes into much more detail on why this is true, but it’s not very well explained in the film. Or is it? I think I kinda just proved that the movie establishes that parental or adult authority is good for nothing, hence why the kids have to deal with It themselves.

Bill’s dad and Eddie’s mom are the closest that we get to decent adults in the movie, but they’re not that decent. Bill’s dad gets aggressively angry with Bill for trying to find Georgie’s corpse. I get that he’s probably aware of the town’s history for child killing and that he’s probably afraid of losing Bill as well, but Bill’s just a kid (who wears his heart on his sleeve) and he’s obviously feels guilty about his part in Georgie’s death, so why doesn’t the dad have a bit more sympathy for his child who’s obviously in pain? Eddie’s mom is just overbearing (maybe to the point of abuse, but that’s a different discussion entirely), but again it feels more like she doesn’t want to lose him rather than she’s being a bad parent.

And the kids in this film are MESSED UP because of it. This movie is all about overcoming your demons, facing your fears, and the burdens of childhood, as well as the struggles of coming of age. That much has always been apparent with this franchise. For me, this movie is all about choice. I think Mike’s… grandfather (maybe) said it best, but I’ll paraphrase and give my interpretation of this movie’s theme stated moment: You must make a choice or someone is going to choose for you, and you’ll regret it if they do.

Now, the Losers don’t get full arcs that stay with them in the sequel, but that’s life; as much as we try to learn our lessons, we sometimes forget to keep them with us. The problem with doing a two part movie and setting it as two separate movies is that the arcs in the first one aren’t as complex and deep as they are in the larger narrative. But I’m strangely okay with it. The kids are enjoyable to watch and are clearly decent actors with a lot of potential. The point of the film is that they are coming of age and the tragedy is that things can never go back to the way that they were. You can only go forward.

Let’s start with the one in that scene: Mike. From what I can gather, he watched his parents die in a fire and he’s unable to kill the sheep in the beginning of the film. He runs away from Henry until the rock war and then chooses to stay with the Losers. He kills the sheep, showing that he understands the lesson, but it’s not fully learned yet. By the end, he’s willing to kill Henry to save his life and his friends lives. He faced his fears and came out on top. But poor Mike, he doesn’t get a lot of screen time. I’m not kidding: he is absent from the movie for 45 minutes, which is just about 40% of the runtime. Especially considering how important he is when the kids become adults, that’s a lot of time for a chief character to go unnoticed.

Next, let’s go to Stanley, simply because he was sidelined in this film. Admittedly, because of the miniseries, I knew what fate would befall him later on, so I get why he was kinda shoved to the side, but still. His arc is more about reading the Torah. In his scare scene (okay, that sends shivers down my spine), he’s not reading it and he’s disappointing his father (more evidence that Stanley was sidelined in this film is that I totally forgot to add his dad in the list of adults earlier), but by the end, he’s reading the Torah in the “Dear God” montage (great song, btw). And that about sums him up: he’s forced into the choices that he makes, and he regrets it each time, making him a thematic counterpoint to every other one of the Losers. It’s a cool moment at the beginning of the climax when they’re all going back into the Neibolt house and Stanley is still hesitant to do it. The speech that Bill gives about doing it together really solidifies Stanley’s actions in Chapter Two.

Next I’ll move onto Ben. I don’t really think he has much of an arc in this one, either, or at the very least, it’s not well defined. Like, really, his arc has more to do with his relationship with Beverly than anything else. He has to summon up the confidence to admit his feeling for Beverly, which culminates in the true love’s kiss that breaks Pennywise’s hold over her. But other than that, he doesn’t really change. His arc is much better in the sequel. I guess, for arguments sake, you could say that he starts the movie as the new kid: alone, withdrawn, introverted, and throughout the summer becomes more extroverted and trusting of his friends, but since that happens before the middle, I don’t know that it really counts.

While I’m on the topic of Beverly and Ben, (and this is a point of contention that I have with the sequel as well) is the love triangle between Bev, Ben, and Bill. I noticed that they all have B names. Does that make it a “B” story? Heh? Heh? No, actually, it’s the silliest thing in this movie, and that’s saying a lot given how I view Pennywise. I don’t really mind that Beverly and Ben have an arc where they must admit their feelings for each other but having Bill as a third party is superfluous. I get that it’s a little realistic that Bev wouldn’t automatically assume that Ben was the one who wrote her the note, and she’s trying to figure it out, but it just feels useless given how much else the kids have to deal with in this film.

Beverly is the definition of the theme. Her arc revolves around the fact that she understands the power of her choices. She’s also a thematic tool to help the boys realize the importance of their choices (girls mature faster than guys, anyways, so this makes perfect sense): when they’re all standing on the cliff in their tighty-whities, they’re all too scared to make the choice to jump. When Bev comes by, she jumps in before any of them, thereby forcing them to do it out of “manly pride” or whatever. It’s also foreshadowing Bev being the first one to face her fears and overcome them when she nearly kills her father. She even says it best at the AILM: “I want to run towards something, not away from it.” She’s also the only one of the Losers to go through a physical change: cutting her hair, thereby enforcing her relevance to the them and her willingness to change. She also has, arguably, the most defined arc in the film: she goes from a subdued and passive “daddy’s girl” to beating up her abusive father. She has to hide everything from him the beginning and is nearly silent and whimpering in his presence but becomes a force to be reckoned with and stabs the demon clown in the face not only once, but twice. Because of her actions, Billy can understand how to beat Pennywise, making Beverly probably the most important character in the story.

Eddie also has a relatively clear arc. When the film starts, he’s super annoying: talking about all the infections that you can get from the water, whining about his infections, and complaining about how his mother will kill him. Of course, the opposite to this by the end is that he tosses away his pills, stands up to his mother, and wades through sewer water to go fight a demon clown. This gets further expanded in the sequel, so I’ll leave this here as is, for now, and move onto Eddie’s thematic opposite:

Richie. This kid, I swear, they lifted from a different movie. Finn Wolfhard clearly brought everything he learned about working on <i>Stranger Things</i> to this role, and he’s hilarious. He’s got great one-liners, and his friends just seem use to him by now. He’s like the Chandler of the group. His arc is more along the lines of being selfless and being there for his friends, I guess. It’s not that overt, but he’s too funny. Watch him in the background, too, he’s always doing something different (there’s a scene where he steals a tuba and is trying to play it). He’s also really good at playing the “hiding golden heart behind broken comedy” trope (very much like Chandler. Then he beats Pennywise up with a bat. He’s just awesome.

Bill is a very complex and layered character. He’s haunted by the guilt of his past and burdened by the loss of his brother. He’s clearly very afraid but he knows that he must rise above his fear. Pennywise’s tactics for scaring him are also wholly unique. For the others, their scares come in the shape of a physical fear (a Leper for Eddie, burnt hands for Mike, the painting for Stanley, etc.), but for Bill, it comes in the form of Georgie, reminding him not of a physical fear, but of an emotional (and later on we discover that it’s a mental) one. Bill fears the guilt inside himself, manifested as Georgie in the last outfit that Bill saw him in. And Bill’s arc in this film comes to a close when he talks to Georgie one last time in the sewer and shoots him in the head, effectively telling Pennywise that he’s done feeling afraid of his guilt for Georgie.

But we all know that’s not entirely accurate, is it? Like their arcs, it’s not quite over yet. But that is something that we’ll have to discuss in the sequel.

(I know that feels a little tacked on, but so did the “Chapter One” title appearing only at the end).