That’s It, Isn’t It?

SPOILER ALERT if you haven’t already seen It.

I saw the remake of Stephen King’s It a few weeks ago and was impressed. Usually, I can’t stand horror movies because of the useless jump scares and over-the-top blood and gore. But I loved reading It and I enjoy pretty much anything Stephen King writes, so I figured… why not? (I saw only bits and pieces of the 1990 miniseries, so I really can’t compare the 2017 version to the older one.)

At first, I didn’t like that the movie was set in the late 1980s because that was a departure from the book, whose first part (when the main characters are kids) was set in the late 1950s. As the movie went on, it turned out that the different time frame really didn’t make much difference for the plot. The coming-of-age vibe was still there and the characters were still true to themselves.

My other two issues with the movie were the scene where blood starts gushing up from the sink, completely covering the bathroom and soaking poor Beverly. I didn’t care for it because the use of blood seemed like it was overkill, but then again, I had to remind myself that this is a Stephen King movie and that’s what he does best (it reminded me of the blood-dousing scene in Carrie).

There also seemed to be an unresolved plot point toward the end when all the kids were down in the sewer fighting off It. All of It’s previous victims were literally floating, and at one point, they started to float lower once the monster started to weaken. I wondered if that meant that the kids would come back to life eventually, but the “kids floating lower” was never explained. Maybe the next movie will have a better explanation because I don’t remember anything like that happening in the book.

Otherwise, I’d recommend It. Pennywise was a lot creepier than the original, and the camaraderie among the kids seemed realistic (thank God the movie left out that weird sex scene from the book). A very long book (well, half the book, anyway) was boiled down into a 2-hour movie without losing much, which was a great success on the director’s part. I’m looking forward to Chapter 2, when the kids (now adults) come back to destroy It once and for all.

6 thoughts on “That’s It, Isn’t It?

  1. Maggie, 

        You know I love you madly but PLEASE indicate “SPOILER” if you’re going to reveal stuff about a movie (or even a book) so you don’t spoil it for people who haven’t seen/read it. 

    Thx,  Rich


  2. I read “It” while working night shift as a security guard at a meat packing plant back in 1990. I sat alone in a little guard shack and read it by the light of a small desk lamp during my 11pm-7am shift and in between my rounds, which took me around the large, sparsely lit lot and through the plant itself. Had a joker put a red balloon in the large freezer I had to walk through filled with slabs of beef hanging from steel hooks every night they’d have found me dead of a heart attack the next morning. It was a horrible idea on my part to read that book those nights.


    • That is freaky! Stephen King’s stuff scares me so bad that I have to take long breaks in between reading his books… I really do start having bad dreams otherwise.

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  3. Well, I’ve never read Stephen King because I tend to have recurring memories of movie scenes for a week or so afterwards, but I do somehow feel I am missing something here since Stephen King has been so popular for so long with other writers. Maybe I will read the book first…


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