FILM REVIEW: It: Chapter Two (2019)

Directed by Andy Muschietti

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I don’t find clowns scary. In turn, I can only be so scared by It, Stephen King’s iconic story whose very anchor takes the form of a clown. With the modern trends of mainstream horror, I choose to view It not so much as a horror movie, but as a cinematic haunted house – it’s that fun brand of spooky that jumps at you and startles you, but you end up strolling out of that haunted house with a fun time had, rather than being terrified. As cynical as that may sound, I emphasize that part about having fun – this was very much the case for 2017’s It, and here we are with It: Chapter Two, and I couldn’t find myself saying the same thing.

In 1989, a group of misfit children known as the Losers’ Club descended into the sewers of Derry to confront the ultimate evil, an entity dubbed ‘It’ which has taken the form of Pennywise the Clown (Bill Skarsgard), devouring the town’s children. Unsure if they defeated It, they made a pact to reunite if It returns. 27 years later, Pennywise has indeed resurfaced to terrorize Derry. When the news hits the Losers’ Club, it shakes them, but they band together to put this evil to rest once and for all. The only way to defeat It is to sacrifice an artifact from their childhood in what is called the Ritual of Chud. The Losers go on their separate ways to find their artifact, to rediscover their forgotten childhoods in the menacing townscape of Derry.

Like its predecessor, Chapter Two is distractingly overproduced. The camera never sits still, rocking and shaking during scary moments with those signature loud noises to startle you (this means you’re supposed to be scared). These methods are already annoying to begin with, but are even more so here because there are scenes that would be perfect otherwise, though there are some solid moments here (more on those later).

Bonding with the Losers’ Club was my favorite aspect of the predecessor (as well as the 1990 TV movie, for that matter), and I was really excited to see them as adults. As soon as the movie begins, though, it gets right to business. In turn, we never get much of a chance to get a true grasp of where our beloved protagonists are in life, to enjoy the fruits of their success – just a brief glance instead. With that, it was still great to see the adult versions of themselves, even though they still speak like the vulgar juveniles they were 27 years ago. This was distracting for me as well, as there are times where it’s as if they haven’t matured at all, still telling “Your Mom” jokes all the time, and trying way too hard with forced one-liners.

On a side note, like Chapter One, Mike is thrown almost completely to the wayside, his only major contribution being his explanation of the Ritual of Chud, a scene that is not well written and kind of laughable in its attempt at being trippy, as if the director’s chair was handed to Hunter S. Thompson for a moment.

Please don’t think I hated this movie. Quite the opposite. The casting choices are perfect. Everybody not only nails their role, but everybody bears almost identical appearance to their child counterparts. I had no trouble picking out who was who just from looking at them. I particularly enjoyed Jessica Chastain as Beverly, the sole female loser. When I heard that Bill Hader would play the talkative Richie, I was immediately sold on this movie.  And then there’s Bill Skarsgard as everybody’s favorite creepy clown, Pennywise. He tried a bit too hard for my taste in Chapter One. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but to my surprise, he really won me over in Chapter Two.

Chapter Two moves along at a solid pace, in spite of problematic tonal imbalance. Chapter Two frequently goes back and forth between the past and the present, and this is handled incredibly well, with seamless transitions between a 27-year gap. While the movie may not make the best technical choices, it still manages to always keep you interested in what’s going to happen next, which is vital here, as Chapter Two runs at just under 3 hours.

I may have criticized this movie’s ideas of how to be scary, but believe it or not, there are some scenes that are really bone chilling. Three sequences stand out for me, one being a brief but tense confrontation between Pennywise and a little girl under a set of bleachers, a scene that proves the slow-burn makes all the difference. Beverly’s visit to her childhood home and her interaction with its elderly inhabitant who isn’t quite right is also particularly creepy. Another solid moment is Bill’s (James McAvoy) descent into a disorienting maze of mirrors at a local carnival. Granted, these two scenes fall victim to the tropes previously mentioned, but a solid A for effort.

And then there’s the climax, the final confrontation in the sewers which is the film’s crowning achievement. Taking up the entire final hour of the movie, you feel like this is what the It saga has been building up to, and it delivers in an apogee of endless thrills. An excellent conclusion follows, putting this saga to rest with a heartfelt coda that puts wonderful closure to this nightmare of a story.

It’s up for debate whether King’s novel can be truly captured on film. I don’t have the answer for this, but I will say that to pull that off, it would require a mammoth of a runtime and unconventional filmmaking methods, neither of which tickle the box office’s fancy. Maybe we’ll get that movie someday, but for now we have these two movies: they may not be particularly scary (unless you’re scared of clowns), but they have just enough character and passion that it’ll satisfy and startle just fine for years to come.