The other night, with the household kid level down 50 percent, Amy and I decided to try It (2017), based on Stephen King’s book of the same name.
I never saw the 1990 miniseries, and—although I checked the book out of the library when I was about twelve, I put it down forever (well, so far) at some point during the first chapter. I can’t quickly find any online quotes that sound totally familiar, but it was something about clowns and teeth that made twelve-year-old me think I just wasn’t going to be able to handle this.
Turns out I lasted only about as long with the movie, but for the opposite reason. Before ponying up to rent the movie via Amazon, I did a quick scan of online reviews. Remembering how much less picky we (you know, as a society) once were—i.e., flipping channels in, say, the 1980s, we got excited when we stumbled onto something just mildly watchable, after all—I’m trying to be more that way now. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a score of 85 percent and described it thus: “Well-acted and fiendishly frightening with an emotionally affecting story at its core, It amplifies the horror in Stephen King’s classic story without losing touch with its heart.” I decided to give it a shot.
However, in the course of clicking around, a Google search results page showed me this excerpt of a Tribune News Service review carried by the Daily News (no, not that one, the one that “serves Genesee, Wyoming, and Orleans counties” upstate):
“Skarsgård has Pennywise’s line delivery down pat, the combination of cajoling and creepy enhanced with large, glowing eyes boring into your soul,” wrote TNS reviewer Katie Walsh. “It’s such a great performance that you wish Muschietti had eased up on the CGI and just let Skarsgård do the talking.”
Walsh hit the nail on the head. The first few minutes of the movie shows off strong cinematographic and directorial chops, and, indeed, Bill Skarsgård’s vocalization was deeply unsettling.
Then the teeth came out.
It’s not a very clear picture—sorry, it’s a screen grab from YouTube—but basically, yes, indeed, I immediately saw what Walsh was talking about.
Do people actually like this kind of thing? One can’t help but think so, based on how widely used CGI effects like this are. But all it does for me is warn me off by letting me know I’m in the hands of a director with no faith in his storytelling abilities.
“This is going to be stupid,” I said to Amy, who didn’t disagree.
I clicked back to the Roku home screen to continue the search.