Movie Review: It

Director: Andy Muschietti

Writers: Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, Gary Dauberman, Stephen King

Stars: Bill Skarsgård, Finn Wolfhard, Sophia Lillis

Verdict: Really solid

So now it’s the movie that has caused you to become to absolute last person on the planet to make the joke, ‘hey I’m going to see It, you know It, IT!’. Hilarious. Pat yourself on the back. 

Based on the Stephen King doorstopper, it has famously been already to a 1990 miniseries which has somehow become iconic despite being really, really shit. It’s written by Cary Fukunaga who’s responsible for the Fassbender Jane Eyre, Beasts of No Nation, and True Detective; and directed by Andy Muschietti who along with Guillermo Del Toro, (Pan’s Labyrinth), brought us the 2013 movie Mama which a, well, fine horror film that I feel some degree of sentimental attachment towards. It has already taken an extraordinary amount of money. It was recently announced that it was the most financially successful horror movie ever, whether or not this inflation adjusted is, well, dubious. In fact, one of the most interesting thing about it is just what a solid investment it is and a solid job at adapting it to an audience they’ve done. There is a hole at the moment in the market for mainstream movies, all the good ones we’ve got in recent years, bar maybe Green Room, don’t seem that open to a wide market, so along comes It; off the back of Stranger Things last year, that itself referenced Stephen King, this movie adopting a look and cast member; it also cuts out the adults story for a separate movie, the adults honestly being the most trashy part of the trashy mini-series, they’ve really maximised the appeal of this movie through opportunity and invention. 

So that’s the first positive, it really highlights the positives of the original and focuses on them for the movie. The second is really the cast. I can’t really think of a performer who performs badly and they all really seem able to add characters who in the screenplay aren’t as fleshed out as one may like and add real depth to them through their performances. That’s really the nature of adapting such a fucking massive book to screen, you will lose some backstory but the filmmaking and acting does quite a lot to fill in the gaps. The performances themselves are also surprisingly subtle for actors of their age. Sophia Lillis is a particular standout and Bill Skarsgård, (Atomic Blonde), who plays Pennywise certainly doesn’t one-up Tim Curry, (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), because you can’t fucking one-up Tim Curry, but he does put a really interesting and chilling spin on things. 

One major problem I had with this new version was that in the scenes it puts in because the mini-series made them famous, it tries too hard to separate itself but feels chained to the original in a way. For example in one early scene that knowingly calls back to mini-series the dialogue is only tweaked, so it comes across as more awkward and forced than, well, chilling. There’s also the issue of the jump scares, which, above other films of this ilk it actually does for moments that are meant to be scary so it carries the tension over for more than just an instantaneous jump, which is nice, however, it would be nice if they were a bit more subtle, but subtlety isn’t really in this movie’s dictionary. 

That being said, It is still a really solid, scary, gripping, and poignant crowd-pleasing horror movie full of characters that you like and that the movie likes. I actually cried during the scene with the pool and someone actually screamed in my screen! WHEN THE FUCK DOES THAT HAPPEN ANYMORE!? I look forward to the sequel which is almost certainly happening. 

Movie Review: A Monster Calls

Director: J.A. Bayona

Writers: Patrick Ness, Siobhan Dowd

Stars:  Lewis MacDougall, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones

Verdict: A joy

WARNING! WARNING! I WAS A LITTLE BIT HUNGOVER WHEN I WATCHED THIS MOVIE! I did it for Black Mountain Poets it’s only fair I give equal treatment. 

A Monster Calls, is in a sense a modern fairytale, although it also has some other framed fairytales in it. The plot is this; Conor has problems, his mother has cancer, his Dad lives in America and his Grandmum, the only person left to care for Conor, has a lot of trouble expressing her emotions and being warm or well, motherly. He’s also bullied by kids that seem like Draco Malfoy but violent and actually mean instead of just an entitles prick. He then sees a monster of the title who says I will tell you three stories, at at the end you will tell me a fourth and it will be your truth. 

I loved this film, I thought it was powerful, poignant, visuallly ravishing, and heartbreaking. It’s the type of film they don’t make anymore, a properly emotional family film. It’s score compose by Fernando Velázquez, (Crimson Peak, Mama), feels like it would be a good match for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or The Railway Children or Goodbye, Mr. Chips. I mean of course it’s British they all are, we have a really good taste for bittersweet melancholia I think. It’s set in the grim houseing blocks that seem lifted out of Scott & Bailey in which the best of those films took place, and like the best of those films, it sublimely blends heartbreaking and uplifting. I tell you right now, if my eyes weren’t already caked in hangover I would have shed buckets, I did shed a tear but I also chocked up in the way you do when you cry, many times, just without the actual waterworks coming. That being said, the actal message of the film is uplifting a hell, and one that is universal, and true, it really feels like it comes from a place of honesty. 

The central performance of Connor from Lewis MacDougall, (Pan) is lovely. He does have hints of that sort of child performance where he’s really trying to act and it’s bleedingly obvious, but that’s rare and he really plays it with intensity and honesty that more often than not only comes from children. He also has this really angular and expressive face etched in child like innocence that beleis his potential for honest intensity. 

It’s effects are breathtaking. While the more surreal incedents take place you can feel how they would really work on page but then that also means that it’s only more incredible how cinematic the sequences are. How well it’s translated cinematically. At the points when the giant is telling his stories it breaks into wonderful hand drawn animations and watercolours that are just astonishing and expressive and beautiful. The giant is also possitively terrifying, at least he would be to the target audience of this film, and he’s realised wonderfully not only visually but also his voice, which is done by Liam Neeson, (Schindler’s List, Taken). Lian Neeson is quickly joining the likes of Morgan Freeman, (The Shawshank Redemption, Se7en), and Lawrence Olivier, (Rebecca, Marathon Man), as actors with just extraordiarily cinematic voices. Gary Oldman can do it too but he only breaks it out for the really cool roles like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The bass of Neeson’s voice may have been incresed in post but it’s still perfect casting. 

The rest of the supporting performances are also on point. Toby Kebbel, (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Warcraft: The Beginning) is really good but not showy as the Dad who’s much better at the friend side of being a Dad than the Dad part of being a Dad. Sigourney Weaver, (Alien) can do an English accent; who knew? And Felicity Jones is actually really, really good as the Mum. I didn’t like her at all  in Rogue One (I actually remember thinking she was allright in romance trash Like Crazy) but she really shows mature acting chops here. 

This film was directed by J.A. Bayona who made The Orphanage, the Spanish version, which was produced by Guillermo del Toro, which incedentally my video game design friend who I’ve mentioned frequently on this blog, made a video essay of for his media A Level. I do think that this film owes something to some of del Toro’s work like Pan’s Labyrinth. They both explore the boundary between reality and imaginary fantasy and children escaping from worlds of crippling sadness and unhappiness into something fantastical but which is also in ways equally as threatening. I do think Pan’s Labyrinth may well be better, but I defintely enjoyed this more.

When I first saw the trailer for this I thought it looked like The BFG again beause well that film was in theatres but it’s so not. It might be a bit sad but it is also really happy don’t worry, it’s not misery porn. It’s really good, bring tissues.