Horror cinema has been around for decades, and over the years it has grown in popularity more and more, to the point that now when IT chapter 2 comes out, it can be a huge hit. I want to talk about why that is, and how horror has gone from a very niche thing to rising to prominence in mainstream culture; then I’ll touch on my thoughts for IT chapter 2.
Horror Cinema has always had a dedicated audience whether its kids and teenagers going to see matinees back in the 50s and 60s, to the rise of Hammer Horror. However, it has never been a genre that Studios have seen as viable for a broad audience, as it forgoes a lot of the profitable demographics. The reason for this is that not everyone likes to be scared, unlike comedy that can appeal to a lot of people, the desire to be scared and in effect horror, in general, is far more niche. Furthermore, horror can offend people they may not think that a film showing such a thing, should be viewed.
Despite that in recent years with the rise of giants like Blumhouse and A24, horror is very much in vogue; it continues to rise and rise with more and more people seeing it as not only profitable but also a creatively free genre, with marketing agencies and big studios realising there is a lot of money to be made off the dedicated fan base that there has always been for horror.
That brings us to the film I am going to cover today, IT Chapter 2.
Chapter 2 carries on from the 2017 release of IT, based off the Stephen King book of the same name, about an entity that preys on the townspeople of Derry, Maine; every 27 years. Where the first chapter focused on the Losers Club, the main protagonists, as children, Part 2 sees them returning as adults when Pennywise the Dancing Clown, the before mentioned entity, awakens from his slumber; to have one final showdown.
I believe in many ways, this film was not as good as the first chapter and a far cry from the 90s miniseries, but it was never going to be. IT Chapter 2 suffered from something a lot of big films do these days, that is being overhyped, these films get talked about and talked about to such an extent that they have to be a perfect film otherwise people are going to feel disappointed, and to a degree cheated; very few films can live up to this standard.
My thoughts on the film can be summed up like this, for a movie that runs for nearly 3 hours, it feels rushed. A lot of key scenes, in terms of character development, from the book are left out; such is the issue with trying to stuff a mammoth book into two films. Adding to this fact, and making it all the worse, is that this film suffers from severe pacing issues. Whilst there are elements of comedy in the original novel it is never front and centre, conversely in this film, there are scenes where comedy is artificially forced in, why this is done is beyond me as it takes away from any sort of tension.
Additionally, though the main characters are well cast and all the actors do a good job, Pennywise, for many people the selling point of these films, is mostly underused, with him being reserved mainly for the final act.
This leaves us with a lot of boring scenes of the Losers Club members walking the streets of Derry and reminiscing about their childhoods, with the occasional jump-scare put in to remind you, that although you may have forgotten, you’re watching a horror film.
Ultimately though there are good aspects, this film feels rushed and also overly drawn out at the same time, and that is something that ruins the movie overall; with it needing a tighter focus.
3/5
Reviewed by Luke
Another Millennial Reviewer 