By: Adarsh Burela
“It: Chapter 2” is a horror movie hit the theaters on Sept. 6, adapted from Stephen King’s“It”. While the first movie covered the first and second chapters of King’s novel, “It: Chapter 2”covers the third and fourth chapters. The film takes place 27 years after the first film as the kids from the last movie band together once more to stop the infamous Pennywise, once and for all.
After the kids defeat Pennywise in the previous movie, they all do their best to forget about the horrors they have witnessed. Most of them grow to become very successful for themselves, almost forgetting about the trauma they’ve faced. Over the years; they leave Derry,Maine; leaving a lone Mike (Isaiah) on his own. Richie (Bill Hader), Stanly (Andy Bean), Ben(Jay Ryan), Bill (James McAvoy), Eddie (James Ransone), Beverley (Jessica Chastain) all split up, not seeing each other for almost 3 decades. Together, while most of them may be successful, feel something missing from their past that they can no longer recall. It is Mike, the last one to stay in Derry, that brings them back to fulfill the promise they made to each other when they had defeated Pennywise: if he ever comes back, they’d return. While the acting in the film is fantastic, the cast is forced to carry a subpar plot through a laughably unscary movie, giving it a ⅖ rating.
Once they all return to Derry, they remember the camaraderie they had once shared therewith all the memories flowing back. One by one, they realize that they’ve forgotten their past, as if a part of their childhood was taken from them. Mike tells the group how to defeat Pennywise using an ancient tribal ritual by collecting tokens of fear over the course of their stay in Derry, and going back to the place where it all began – The Well. This plot, while true to the book, was so underwhelming compared to the first movie, and played out like a comedy more so than a horror movie…
As a whole, the movie was mediocre at best. One of the biggest issues it had was pacing – most of the movie acted as a recap of the first movie, almost as if the producers expected the audience not to have seen the first movie. Jump-scares were long and drawn out, and especially easy to predict. There was one scene where one of the characters met with one of Pennywise’s machinations who was disguised as an older woman. Over a long, drawn out twenty minutes, the monster finally reveals itself when the audience could absolutely predict.That, in addition to rather poor special effects for the budget leaves viewers disappointed.Scenes including Pennywise were phenomenal in their execution and effects, but were seldom in between. Anything other than these scenes were sparse in quality.
The scares in the movie all followed the same formula: small reveal, building music, very little dialogue, music stops, and jump scare. The movie also feels similar to the first movie in the types of horror shown. There is even a scene where Pennywise coerces a young child in the same manner as the first movie, feeling like a lack of creativity on the producers part.
While the film itself was poor in the horror, it was oddly gratified in a comedic facet.There were odd choices in music for a horror movie that seemed placed for the sole purpose in making the audience laugh, along with dialogue with more quips than expected. While appreciated for those who are too sensitive to horror, this is movie felt like a PG-13 movie with a few extra curse words to give it an R rating.