Spooktober IV Review 16: IT Chapter 2

IT: Chapter 2 (2019)

Andy Muschietti

"Fuck you."

Usually there's one or two solid horror movie options in theaters come October, but maybe Hollywood didn't get the memo this year, because what we got were Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, which looks dumb and should have been an anthology film, and Zombieland 2, which I have no interest in seeing because I didn't like the first one. Still, with an afternoon free and a desire to be out of the house, I forged ahead and caught one of the last showings of the IT sequel at my local megaplex. And my God, friends. My God! What a tremendous waste of time.

Here's the thing, this sucker is ten minutes short of three hours long. Three. Hours. Long. For a horror movie that isn't Suspiria, this should be against MPAA regulations. IT should receive an X rating simply based on runtime. Now to be fair, I knew this going in, understanding well ahead of time that I would be squandering precious hours of autumn sunshine to sit in an empty dark theater and force myself to watch the scary clown show, but that's no excuse for how the three hours unfold. So much of this movie is just farting around for farting around's sake. At the point when you assume the plot is starting to wrap up, you still have an hour left. It's excruciating.

It's not all horrible, mind you. There are some genuinely fun or interesting moments, but they mostly serve to remind you that good movies are possible and that this one has made a conscious decision to avoid being one. For example, the scene featuring Jessica Chastain at the old woman's house from the trailer is really creepy and well executed, but it's all pointless because the whole thing was in the trailer, and there's no surprise to it anymore. All of the tension the scene wanted to build had the rug pulled out from under it before it could even start. Why would you make a trailer out of a whole scene anyway? That's just advertising "hey, this is literally all we have you filthy hogs, but you're all going to line up to see it anyway, so fuck you." I mean, what's the audience supposed to do at that scene? I guess it's a good time to get up and go to the bathroom since you already know how the whole fucking thing plays out, but why kneecap one of the most effective scenes in your film this way? It's madness.

But the biggest problem with this scene (actually all the decent scenes) is that it ends in an attempted jump scare which involves LOUD CLOWN NOISES and a shaky cgi monster. This movie has lots of moments where there's a nice buildup of creepiness, only to end with some goofy faced computer generated monster doing loud screams and skittering toward the camera, typically while shaking. That trailer scene would have been terrifying had it ended with an actual naked old lady, maybe with some subtle makeup, lurching toward Jessica Chastain, but instead it was a giant old lady monster with floppy cgi boobs doing yells. It feels like you're watching a Star Wars gleep glop alien rampage through an old lady's sitting parlor, which elicits many feelings, none of which are fear. It completely subverts whatever horror or tension the scene had going for it. This was also my biggest criticism of the first IT film, and was the major reason it made no impression on me, but by gum, I'm stubborn. And dumb. Just so very dumb.

I haven't read IT in many years, so my memory of plot specifics are hazy, but I definitely don't recall it being this half baked. The film chases threads that really have no impact on the story as a whole, and one that literally ends in a hall of mirrors (you know, where directions become meaningless) and has no impact on anything, other than to further resolve a character to kill IT, which he already had to begin with. Another character (who was indeed featured in the novel) is given so much screen time in the first act, but is dispatched clumsily by an ax to the head before he can do literally anything important. There was no adaptation of the source material here. The filmmakers just went through the novel piece by piece and filmed everything they could without a thought to what it might mean to the film's visual narrative as a whole. It's a bit like a D&D scenario where the party kills off a not mission critical NPC and the Dungeon Master just shrugs and figures out a way to continue the story without them. But movies aren't made on the fly! Just write them out of the story, for fuck's sake! You'd save money!

There's a certain charm to Stephen King's coke-fueled writing, but when it's translated onto film through a boring and, more importantly, sober director, you're left with a wandering mess that feels wholly unsatisfying. IT the novel does take the long way 'round, but at least it packs a punch, and you're left feeling something other than boredom. I'd much rather be outraged by an ending than feel nothing besides an overwhelming urge to pee.

The story, if you're not aware, is a jump forward in time from the end of the first film. It is now 27 years later, and weird shit is happening in Derry, Maine once more. After making a disgusting hand gouging pact as children, the Losers have to collect once more to face off against their greatest fear: a clown that can become a giant disheveled old lady with floppy titties who can't even manage to kill Jessica Chastain. You never really get a sense for the true nature of the fear that IT can generate because it all sucks. There's a scene when the Losers all meet up in Derry where their fortune cookies come to life as little bugs with baby heads and eyeballs with tentacles, but, like, everyone would be afraid of that. After being confused by it first. That's what so much of the "fear" in this movie actually is: raw confusion. Now, if you opened a fortune cookie and inside it said "Your mom drowned your twin brother when you were babies and just never told you about it," that would fuck you up. But it's hard to make a shaky cgi monster out of that, I suppose.

There's some interesting criticism about this film that claims that it has a subversive queer message to it, but I just don't see it. The cold open of the film involves two gay men being harassed and assaulted at some shitty Maine carnival, and then Pennywise eats one of them. I don't know that this has some subversive queer message to tell besides "never go to Maine," and "the true homophobes are ancient evil clown demons." They strongly imply that Bill Hader's character is gay and is in love with one of the other male Losers, but it's hardly explored, and he spends the entire movie making fat jokes and spitting out Parks and Rec style one-liners that are so fucking annoying, I wanted to Ludovico Technique the writers while I ripped up the script in front of them.

I know this movie wasn't for me, but I'm also not entirely sure who it's for. If you're just in it for the jump scares and clown pranks, you have to sit through SO MUCH nonsense to get there. If you're in it for the subtle exploration of fear and horror, you have to sit through SO MUCH shaky clown yells. If you're in it for blood and guts, there's 2 hours and 30 minutes of stuff that is not that. IT is so bereft of actual cohesive content that it's almost like they tried to make a movie that pleased no one and possessed no vision. I still can't believe the final act (which feels like it takes 17 hours) when the Losers fight the manifestation of all of their collective fears, which turns out to be a giant spider monster that is also a clown that does yells. The whole thing is like a video game cutscene filled with quick time events. Bill Hader's character has to tap A repeatedly to avoid the tentacle, and Jessica Chastain has to hit L1 and R1 at the same time to duck under a rock. It's so frenetic and nonsensical that it has no punch. You simply don't care what happens as long as its interesting or different from "giant clown spider swings a claw at a human and misses...again." It also culminates with the losers defeating the spider monster by screaming "you stupid motherfucker" at it like 100 times. Seriously.

The more I write, the more wretched this movie becomes in my mind. There will never, never, NEVER be a situation where I will ever willingly sit through this again (and I'm about 5 months away from an 18 hour flight to New Zealand). If you turned all the raw footage from this film over to a competent director and editor, and you were able to strip out and reshoot all of the shaky cgi bullshit, you might come away with a spooky and fun two hours. But why bother?

The only part of the film that gave me any (grim) satisfaction was right after "THE END" when the screen proudly proclaimed this was "An Andy Muschietti Film" as if this means anything.

REVIEW: A cgi clown shaking and running while screaming "PEE PEE POO POO"

HOW I WATCHED IT: In a theater that was empty enough that I could use my phone during the lulls. I also snuck in a sandwich, so the afternoon wasn't a total loss.

BEVERAGE: A frozen Pepsi. My local multiplex has the best fucking self-serve frozen drink machine. I'd prefer Coke, but it's not like I have good taste or, frankly, any self respect, so Pepsi it shall be.