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Stephen King's It 2017 Spoilers!


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A shadow looms over the town of Derry.  Derryfolk don’t seem to care at all if anyone lives or if anyone dies.  This callousness is not the fault of the townsfolk rather it seems to emerge from the incredible tragedies that routinely occur every 27 years, sometimes longer sometimes shorter.

Adults in Derry see the suffering and catastrophes in Derry and try finding rational answers to irrational problems.  Every 30 years give or take, children are found mutilated or go missing and every 30 years the townsfolk set a curfew, lock their doors and the police begin the cold search for a specter which doesn’t even exist in the mind of anyone who disbelieves in the paranormal or supernatural.  Derryfolk have lived with this malevolence for so long that they have come to understand it, tolerate it, or in some way even love it.   

This story is not just about a shape-shifting Bogart from beyond the universe, nor is it about traps set for the most vulnerable children in Derry rather it is a story of the passage between adolescence into adulthood, the fears and troubles we suffer through, and how they manifest into our adult lives no matter how hard we try to suppress them.

This would describe the book It by Stephen King in my opinion although my description pays no credit to the incredible amount of detail found in over 1000 pages.  This book took me about two weeks to read or about 30 - 40 hours of reading.  Every little detail is thoroughly fleshed out but the story never becomes dull.  A problem arises when you take a story such as this and try to adapt it to light and sound.  For starters, you are going to have to cut much of the side stories found in the book and focus on the main plot.  This right here is a dis-service to anyone who enjoys the novel but it is also something which is completely unavoidable.  This movie is only part 1 and it is already 2 hours 20 minutes and I would guess part 2 will be the same.  You will never get all the story into a movie unless it was 10 hours long with a huge budget for set and props.

 

The next thing missing from the movie is the controversial words and actions committed by not just the 7 kids and the gang of bullies but also 3rd party characters or Bob Gray’s enchanting influence on others.  For instance Mike was an African American and Stanley was Jewish and they were called awful names in the book but in this movie Stanley hardly ever gets any story time and you have to use you’re imagination as to why Mike’s getting beat up by Belch and Henry.

In the book Henry has this friend which used to put small animals in the fridge and let them suffocate while doing the flute solo outside and even Henry is disgusted.  In the movie the kid just has a run of bad luck in the sewer.

Of course there is another knee slapper in the book where Eddie encounters this transient who has sores all over his face and is asking Eddie if he can perform filatio but that part is also cut.  This scene in the book was horrifying to read and imagine without the need for specters but in the movie it just fell flat.

There are other scenes but one of the most disputed scenes that was in this book is before the 1st encounter with Pennywise in the sewer.  The 7 kids get lost in the sewer and begin to panic.  Beverly comes up with an idea and tells the boys to take off their clothes.  She says this will strengthen their friendship but it more likely has to do with the abuse she suffers at school and at home I have to imagine although many readers felt this scene to be completely unnecessary because the boys basically run a train on her.

I tried to imagine that I had never read the book nor seen the 1990 made for television movie and felt the 2017 adaptation had great visuals and relationships between the kids were heartfelt and real.  As far as horror movies go, I have become dulled to what is known as jump scares.  Fortunately they aren’t terribly overused in this movie and I did jump a few times although I know upon second watching, I will be bored with Pennywise but instead just enjoying everything else about it.  

 

 

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