Brad Munson got a chance to see IT: Chapter Two, arguably the most highly anticipated horror movie of the summer, in an early screening. As a long-time Stephen King fan (and a horror writer himself), as well as the co-host of a weekly podcast called The Dark Multiverse of Stephen King, he seemed like the ideal person to talk about the movie, how it measures up to Chapter One, and how King fans, horror fans, and movie fans in general might react to Andy Muschietti’s massive three-hour conclusion of the IT saga.
Taking a widely beloved book like It (or The Shining or The Stand or Salem’s Lot before it) is risky business, to say the least. Adaptations of King’s books have often been lackluster or just plain bad; you can count the (generally agreed-upon) successful film or TV versions on the fingers of one hand: Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, The Green Mile, maybe The Mist and the first version of Carrie…and then there’s everything else. And there’s plenty “else.”
How does the new version of IT, both Chapters One and Two measure up? They are certainly as beautifully made as the best of the King adaptations, and some of the performances, especially Bill Skarsgård as the evil clown-creature Pennywise, as absolutely amazing. But the two films–taken together and separately–are rich and complicated and long; they move very quickly and demand a lot more from the audience than a normal ‘horror’ movie…in part because the horror is often not the center of the story: the center is the relationship between the six children (and later the five adults) that form The Loser’s Club, and how they come to understand that they will perish as individuals, but can make miracles if they work together.
The young actors who brought the characters of Bill Denbrough, Beverly Marsh, Richie Tozier and the rest to life in Chapter One are still very much present in Chapter Two, even though their adult versions, played with grace and power by folks like James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, and Bill Hader, are center stage. Together they have a hell of a job: to confront the re-emergent evil of Pennywise twenty-seven years after ITs first appearance, to rediscover the friendships of youth that they had almost completely forgotten, and to both uncover the origin and finally destroy a creature that is literally millions of years old.
L-r: Isaiah Mustafa, Bill Hader, James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain and Jay Ryan
Chapter Two is long and complicated–both fairly unusual characteristics for a ‘horror’ film, a genre that tend to feature simple stories (often with a twist), and rarely top two hours running time. Andy Muschietti has pushed those boundaries, and made a film that, first and foremost is made for deep, deep Stephen King fans. There are many, many scenes here that come from the original novel–elements we never thought would see the light of day, and references to side-stories and historical artifacts that there’s no time to tell. It is both wonderful and frustrating; in fact, two major subplots that are key to King’s original story are sidelined completely in Chapter Two, and as with Chapter One, the ending is completely re-imagined compared to the source material. But there’s no doubt that Muschietti understands King’s novel, top to bottom, and has made some fairly brilliant decisions to collapse it, economize it, “fold it in,” so the story can be told efficiently and effectively in a way that those deep King fans will truly appreciate it.
At the same time, fans of Stephen King movies in general–movies that tend to move faster, stay simple, and end with a bloody bang–may have some trouble here. If they liked Chapter One, they’re likely to appreciate Chapter Two, with all the virtues and flaws of the first part reiterated here (and amped up tenfold). The even larger group of fans of the broader, bloody, gory, smash-and-run horror genre in general may find the whole affair slow and over-complicated. There is still much to enjoy here–plenty of muck, plenty of great images courtesy of Pennywise and comic relief from Bill Hader–but it can be a challenge. This is a big movie, and not just in terms of its run time of nearly three hours, but because it talks about big things; it expects you to hang on and keep up. But ultimately it will pay off for anybody that’s expecting more than a quick succession of jump scares and squib-squirts.
One bit of advice: if you haven’t seen IT: Chapter One yet, rent it on Amazon for $3.99 and enjoy. Even if you did see it when it premiered two years ago, consider watching it again just before you hit the multiplex for Chapter Two; there are so many echoes, intertwinings, and back-references that you’ll enjoy Two all the more if you see the whole five-hour-plus story in fairly quick succession.
It’s not an easy movie, but it’s a scary movie, a moving experience, and a memorable piece of work. It’s also one of the best Stephen King adaptation ever made, right up there with Shawshank and Stand By Me.
