Film: 'It - Chapter 2'

So I've reached it - now 5,000 films seen in a cinema, and henceforward I'll be reducing my cinema-going regime, only taking in those films I really want to see. More about that at the end of this posting. First 'It - Chapter 2':-

Back in the 1980s I used to consider myself one of the world's biggest Stephen King fans. Then, however, his subsequent novels, with just one or two exceptions (most notably 'Misery') seemed to lack the punch and memorability of his earliest ones - and 'It' became one of his books which, despite a terrific opening, ended up in the 'He's-written-better' category.  

I found the film of the first instalment (2017) of this two-parter just 'okay', not more special than that, giving it a rating of 5/10. So there was room to be more impressed with this one. 
In the decades since reading the novel of mighty length (as are so many of King's) I've all but forgotten what happened so came to this film with almost a clean slate, only recalling the evil, shape-transforming clown Pennywise (played by returning Bill Skarsgard) - scary, but not quite to the depth one might have wanted.
After a brief prologue featuring seven of the kids who'd confronted Pennywise in the previous part, now taking a blood oath that they'd meet up again if ever the clown returned, the major part of this film jumps forward to the group as adults (well, six of them, including James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain) meeting up again in a Chinese restaurant, the venue for the first of many (too many?) set pieces of full in-your-face, special effects horror. 
There are frequent shortish retrospective scenes of the six adults as their younger selves in exploratory, fooling around mode, discovering horrors.

Needs must mention that before this adult group's restaurant rendezvous there's a hideously violent, extended incident of gay-bashing against two young men, bone crunching and bloody, probably the most intense of this particular kind of assault I've ever seen on screen, and every bit as horrific as anything later in the film. In one or two further sequences later on homophobic put-downs are flung around with abandon. 

The film 'proper', having started with the restaurant, moves episodically to Pennywise confronting each of the group separately and in turn, with his full bag of horror tricks, he appearing in various forms and identities, some of which are quite imaginative, I must admit - and then all the group together confront him in his various guises until the overblown, protracted showdown - by which time my fatigue at the constant barrage of special effects was getting me down and, frankly, bored. The film is just 15 mins short of three hours, which is a huge ask for the audience in staying with it. 
A lot of the 'shocks' are of the 'silence - CRASH!!!' type which would only make the uninitiated jump out of their seats, while those of us used to the hackneyed technique have become inured to their predictability and can see them coming from miles off.

Looking back I found the creepiest part of the entire film was not Pennywise's many clever-clogs antics but when Jessica Chastain visits her family childhood apartment to find an old woman living there alone , and who invites her in for a cup of tea. There are no special effects at all, only the woman who, when she turns her face  away, with a sinister smile speaks volumes of horror more than all tricksy effects can muster, That was the only part of the film which truly freaked me out.
I was also surprised and quite thrilled to see Stephen King himself appearing in a brief cameo role.

It's a tiring film to watch in much the same way that I found each of the Harry Potter films extremely wearing on both mind and derriere, though the Potters have denser material to work with under a veneer of plausibility if you accept the world of wizardry, but 'It' is pure hokum from first to last. 


Director Andy Muschietti, whose only the second feature film this appears to be, pulls out all the stops with this and rarely uses subtlety - though that old woman episode was a laudable  exception. 
There are at least three conspicuous direct references to earlier horror films - 'Psycho', 'The Thing' and 'The Shining' are the ones I noticed (You could hardly miss them!) There were probably more. 

I can't imagine anyone having liked the first part will feel short-changed by this. As for me, well it was a relief to have got the darned thing over with!..............4.5.

(IMDb......................7.1 / Rott.Toms.......4.1 / 5 )


Now, having attained the cinema-going 'score' I was aiming at and having awaited for years, I'll now only be seeing films I genuinely wish to, not including those I feel ought to be seen. 
My first 'big' cinema year was 1966 when I was 19, so an easy calculation will demonstrate that since then my average has been to see about two films per week. My highest attendance rate was in 1978 when I went 205 times, the lowest being, in fact, this present year, probably finishing between 70 and 80. I think in future I may be reducing it to around just one a week, but we'll see how it goes.
So apologies to anyone who'll be disappointed to my going 'only' 50 times in a year, but there you are - one gets older!  Now 'scuse me while I go and make my booking for the next couple of weeks - a mere four visits. ;-)