Film · 2017
It
Seven outcast kids face a menace that stalks their town as Pennywise the Dancing Clown.
- Year
- 2017
- Directed by
- Andy Muschietti
- Starring
- Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Martell, Sophia Lillis, Jack Dylan Grazer, Chosen Jacobs, Wyatt Oleff, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Nicholas Hamilton
- Running time
- 135 minutes
- Country
- United States
- Original language
- English
- Kind of horror
- Monster, Small town, Teen
Derry, Maine has a clown problem, and it isn't the balloon animal kind. Something lives down in the sewers, and it's decided that a gang of misfit kids who nobody else takes seriously look rather tasty.
So the Losers' Club, as they end up calling themselves, do what any sensible group of outcasts would do and band together, because clearly no grown up is going to sort this out for them. It's coming of age wrapped round dread, the kind of film that knows being ignored and picked on is its own quiet horror before anything with too many teeth turns up.
I'd put this at a solid three. It's more creeping unease with sudden jolts than proper nightmare fuel, and there's enough warmth and banter between the kids that it never tips into misery. Good for a night when you want a genuine scare but also want someone to root for.
Watch it with the lights half on, and maybe give storm drains a wide berth for a day or two after.
If you like this, try
Blue Velvet
A student finds an ear in a field and follows it into a nightclub singer's troubles.
Donnie Darko
A teenager survives a bizarre accident, then a figure in a rabbit costume tells him the world has 28 days left.
Halloween
An escaped patient returns to a quiet Illinois town on Halloween night, stalking a babysitter and her friends.
It: Chapter Two
The Losers Club returns to Derry twenty seven years on to face what they never quite outran as children.