Stephen King's IT

[BRoswell]

The first chapter was incredibly underwhelming to me, and I'm not holding out hope that the second chapter will be any better. I keep wondering how Cary Fukunaga would have handled things had he remained as director. I feel like he would have gone for less Big Budget Horror moments and filled both films with loads of atmosphere and dread.

[Erneuert]

[dlb]

Really thinking about attending a double feature when this drops as I haven't seen the first one in full. But that's a lot to sit through I guess...

[Erneuert]

I haven't seen the first one in full.

Heathen!

[Conan The Barbarian]

Any word on the supposed directors cut of chapter 1? I haven’t bought it in 4k yet and my wife is starting to gain interest( she is not a horror fan at all).

[dlb]

No word on it for a while, but Muschietti is talking about a director's cut for part 2... maybe he will put something together for the definite home video release of both parts. would make sense.

[Erneuert]

^ Yeah they’re probably waiting for both.

[Erneuert]

Well this is awesome.

[Erneuert]

[Jinsai]

Well, that was a pretty huge disappointment. I can’t remember the last time I tried so hard to like something, and ultimately failed

[imail724]

Well, that was a pretty huge disappointment. I can’t remember the last time I tried so hard to like something, and ultimately failed

Did you like part 1?

[RJK]

So something that I noticed is that when Mike calls everyone the number he calls Eddie from is different than the number he calls everyone else from...
Also I wonder if the numbers are real

[Jinsai]

Did you like part 1?

Yeah, part one was fine, but incomplete without this... and sadly it feels like it tarnished part one a bit. Who wrote this screenplay??

[marodi]

Yeah, part one was fine, but incomplete without this... and sadly it feels like it tarnished part one a bit. Who wrote this screenplay??

A guy named Gary Dauberman. He wrote part 1 too and a bunch of movies from The Conjuring universe. He's also listed as the writer of the upcoming Salem's Lot remake...

[Jinsai]

A guy named Gary Dauberman. He wrote part 1 too and a bunch of movies from The Conjuring universe. He's also listed as the writer of the upcoming Salem's Lot remake...

I'm wondering if the first one worked as well as it did was due really to Fukunaga's original screenplay... I wanted to like this movie so much... the characters, outside of Ritchie, felt hollow and forced.... as if they were chosen just because they were actors who sorta looked like the kids. Bill Hader rocked, and Skarsgard was great when they let him actually do his thing outside of the CG... I dunno, it just felt like something screaming about how obviously it could have been better. The first hour was ok outside of Spoiler: Stanley's suicide, which just SUCKED so much I don't even want to say what sucked about it, just fuck the way that was done

[DF118]

Oh man, this was really terrible.

Also, bad, bad anti-aging CGI on the kids' scenes. They all looked like they were made out of Play-Doh.

[hellospaceboy]

Very mixed feelings here, but the scale unfortunately leans towards a disappointment I'm afraid.
The opening scene was absolutely atrocious, had no business being in this movie, it didn't connect and was quite upsetting to watch. Easily the worst thing about the movie, so the good thing is it does get better...
The cast was excellent, I really enjoyed the creature design, while the CGI was distracting here and there, they at least used it for things that were creative and impossible to do practically. It had some really good scares.

I think this is where splitting the story into 80s and present day in separate movies really hurt. The first movie was stronger for it, but the present day stuff was always the weakest part so no surprise that the movie suffers from it. Weird how much it was padded with the childhood stuff, kinda broke the illusion that each movie represents an era.

[elevenism]

I honestly didn't see what was so mind blowing about the first one, except for that it had some of the book in it- like, maybe 10%?
This type of shit needs to be a tv show on hbo or something. I'm a HARDCORE Stephen king fan- his books are my favorite ANYTHING, as in, albums, movies, shows: NOTHING gets me more excited than a new SK book. And, idk, most of that shit borders on unadaptable, imho, UNLESS they tried a tv show format, perhaps.

Most of the great sk movies were based on novellas. See, IT, as a book- a big part of what's so great about it is that there is SO much to the world, and also, sort of like editorializing narrative description that couldn't be adapted into a film.

So, idk. The first one did NOT capture the book, and it was NOT a scary horror movie, but, it was decent, I suppose.

All of that being said, I hate it that the second one appears to NOT be decent. :/

[Space Suicide]

I seen this tonight and enjoyed it. It has flaws like all movies but I didn't dislike watching it and with an open mind it's fun and a good ride. The 2+ hours flew by.

[Jinsai]

They had the working components though... Skarsgård was perfect, the child cast was great... Bill Hader was pretty amazing. But, I chalk the fail here to the screenplay. Pacing was shit, missed the point... and some of that fucking CG looked ludicrous...

and WTF with the part where the leper pukes on Eddie and suddenly the song “just call me angel of the morning” comes on? This isn’t a film with an experimental tone, so that just felt dumb

[Space Suicide]

They had the working components though... Skarsgård was perfect, the child cast was great... Bill Hader was pretty amazing. But, I chalk the fail here to the screenplay. Pacing was shit, missed the point... and some of that fucking CG looked ludicrous...

and WTF with the part where the leper pukes on Eddie and suddenly the song “just call me angel of the morning” comes on? This isn’t a film with an experimental tone, so that just felt dumb

I'm pretty numb to CGI usage these days. It didn't offend me watching those graphics so I didn't abhor it.

The flashbacks were neat but some broke the flow of the story.

[Jinsai]

For me it was more a stylistic choice with the CG. The whole scene with Mrs Kersh was great until wtf happened

[burninglard]

I agree with hellospaceboy that the opening scene was total bullshit. It served no purpose. Almost made me walk out of the film. After that though I thought the film was kind of ... meh. I love the original and liked chapter 1 a lot. This one seemed a little to pointlessly long. The guy that plays Pennywise didn’t get enough screen time IMO. I didn’t feel scared at all. Also I though Bill Hader was really good, but not as much as people have been hyping his performance. Just my 2 cents. I am glad I saw it, but I probably won’t be adding it to my collection if that makes sense.

[BRoswell]

The opening scene was absolutely atrocious, had no business being in this movie, it didn't connect and was quite upsetting to watch.

I agree with hellospaceboy that the opening scene was total bullshit. It served no purpose. Almost made me walk out of the film.

I haven't seen the film yet, but I'm assuming the scene you're talking about is Spoiler: when the gay man is attacked and thrown off the bridge. It probably was tough to watch, but to be fair, that scene is also in the novel, and it's what kickstarts the second half of the story. Again, I haven't seen the film yet, so I don't know how they approached that scene, but it is part of the original story, so it wasn't just thrown in at random.

[hellospaceboy]

Spoiler: Yes, that's the scene. Maybe it worked in the novel, but it was awfully jarring and cruel, and didn't fit with the rest of the movie... It's such a weird event to signal Pennywise's return: the crime was committed by adults, the victim wasn't a child, wasn't lured away by him, he just sort of happen to be there by accident. This is real life violence, and the rest of the movie has very dreamlike, trippy scares. And worst of it, it didn't matter, because it never comes up again, the bullies never come back, and nobody mentions it again. I read that in the book it shows the underlying human evil in Derry and how Pennywise feeds on it, but that part 100% doesn't come through in the movie. I understand why the filmmakers decided to include it, but I think it was the wrong choice. (they knew to cut the pre-teen gangbang, amirite?)

[Jinsai]

it might have stuck out in the film because it never really established that the tone was that dark... in the book, Pennywise as the entity is tied to cruelty and fear. It goes into phobias and racism. They have segments in the book that go over town-justice mob killings, racial lynchings, and societal failure to protect the innocent... it all ties into what fuels the entity in the book, and the scene you're talking about is crueler in the book. Putting him simply, IT's sort of fed by the town's general awfulness, and acts of supreme intolerance and cruelty are almost like "summoning rituals."

It was a little harder to tell in the film, but the act was carried out by young teens, even if the victims were adults. I'm not sure if that's implied to mean anything, but it's part of the darkness and the deeper meaning of the story that Pennywise thrives off of that sort of thing, maybe is suggested to fuel and empower it. It's upsetting and awful but it should be. Honestly, I thought that was one of the only scenes the film did really well.

[BRoswell]

it might have stuck out in the film because it never really established that the tone was that dark... in the book, Pennywise as the entity is tied to cruelty and fear. It goes into phobias and racism. They have segments in the book that go over town-justice mob killings, racial lynchings, and societal failure to protect the innocent... it all ties into what fuels the entity in the book, and the scene you're talking about is crueler in the book. Putting him simply, IT's sort of fed by the town's general awfulness, and acts of supreme intolerance and cruelty are almost like "summoning rituals."

It was a little harder to tell in the film, but the act was carried out by young teens, even if the victims were adults. I'm not sure if that's implied to mean anything, but it's part of the darkness and the deeper meaning of the story that Pennywise thrives off of that sort of thing, maybe is suggested to fuel and empower it. It's upsetting and awful but it should be. Honestly, I thought that was one of the only scenes the film did really well.

I think that was my main issue with the first film. They barely scratched the surface of the darkness within the town. That was part of why I was originally excited for Cary Fukunaga to direct it, because the first season of True Detective dealt with a lot of the same ideas, and I felt that he could tackle that well. Unfortunately, what we're getting is a pair of films that seem to be trying to walk the line between audience-friendly scares and the incredibly dark material in King's novel, and it's not really jelling as a whole.

[DF118]

My biggest gripe was the bad use of comedy during the horror scenes. Every single bit was undercut by a joke, a bad gag, some type of catchphrase. That in itself would be frustrating, but given the pretense for serious subject matter- it was a mess tonally. Horrors existing in small town America, repressed trauma- on paper that's great subject matter to explore. Crappy, camp humor undermines that.

[Space Suicide]

My biggest gripe was the bad use of comedy during the horror scenes. Every single bit was undercut by a joke, a bad gag, some type of catchphrase. That in itself would be frustrating, but given the pretense for serious subject matter- it was a mess tonally. Horrors existing in small town America, repressed trauma- on paper that's great subject matter to explore. Crappy, camp humor undermines that.

Yeah there was a few instances of that I took note of.

[richardp]

Wasn't as great as part one, definitely had some issues, but overall it was still pretty damn fun. I'm holding out full judgment on both movies until the inevitable ultra long extended cut that weaves both film's together comes out.

But I will say that, while these two movies were both pretty good in my eyes, they still proved that at a combined run time of 5 hours, that still wasn't enough to full flesh out the story. Ultimately, presenting the book as a mini-series would probably due the best job at getting everything the way it should be.