“It” was the most successful horror. On the first weekend, the film collected a record $117 million for the horror in the North American box office, around $180 million worldwide. The results of the box office were twice as good as the forecast. This is encouraging for several reasons. Firstly, viewers are ready to watch a new version of their favorite book, even despite the strong love for the old one made for TV in 1990. Secondly, the cash sensationalism “It” guarantees a sequel to us - although it is incorrect to call it that, because while Andrés Muschietti only transferred half of Stephen King’s monumental novel to the screen.
Thirdly (and this is most important), despite the horror film renaissance in the last ten years, the public has shown the ability to evaluate a more complex algorithm within the framework of the genre. “It” is still not “Insidious” and not “Saw”, the new series of which advertise trailers before the beginning of the film Muschietti, but truly complex and feature films. Its authors set and solve a number of atypical tasks, and not only try to scare. “It” is a monumental mystical saga about an ancient evil that settled in the sewers of the town of Derry. But it’s still the quivering and tender story of “Losers Club” - rogue teens (black, Jewish, bespectacled, stutterer, asthmatic, fat boy and a girl from a dysfunctional family) on one vacation, when they all experienced their first love, first meeting with death and the first stage of maturation.
Argentine director Andrés Muschietti is a protégé of the Guillermo del Toro, under whom he started his brilliant debut, the paradoxical and moderately sentimental horror “Mother!” A sensitive and gifted man, Muschietti has clearly grown on “It” He touchingly transfers the time of action to his own childhood - the end of the 1980s. Only cinematic quotes and allusions, including references to “Batman,” “Lethal Weapon 2,” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child,” can touch the same age as Muschietti to tears. In addition, here from such recognizable and accurate trivia (soundtrack, costumes, hairstyles, and so on) almost the entire film is woven.
Casting succeeded by about two-thirds, which is already a lot. At a minimum, Jaeden Lieberher (actor from the beautiful “Midnight Special”), familiar from the TV series “Stranger Things” Finn Wolfhard and Sophia Lillis, hit the bull's eye. The eerie dancing clown Pennywise — the success of the entire enterprise depended on the proper selection of an actor for this role — performed by Bill Skarsgård seems so perversely natural that fear turns into admiration. From makeup to voice, from costume to indispensable balloons, the image turned out to be amazingly solid.
A special touch is the invitation of Jeong Jeong-hoon as an operator. Light and the right camera angles for a horror movie are the decisive factors, and in this, the permanent cameraman Park Chan-wook (he shot Oldeuboi, Bakjwi and the recent Agasshi) is a real virtuoso.
All this is true, but it is impossible to dissemble and ignore the main reason why people went in crowds to watch “It”: this is the primary source. This is one of the best (and according to some polls, the best) novel of the most important writer of our time. Unfortunately, in many countries, because of the late arrival of Stephen King to the market, and then because of the monstrous translations, many still consider the “king of horrors” to be a strictly genre author of tabloid disposable handicrafts. Even “It” is more known by the film version of 1990, to put it mildly, imperfect (although with a very scary clown - that is, that is). Yes, Stephen King is probably a graph maniac and a purely commercial writer, but this does not negate the obvious: he is also a genius.
Of course, “It” is a fascinating and scary novel, an excellent reading matter. However, these advantages of the text are not exhausted. This is the best after Lovecraft - and much to him - the study of the roots of American fears, in which the Alien phobia, a stranger from a different universe, is oddly intertwined with a feeling of guilt for the collective sins of slavery and the genocide of the Indians. Besides, a clever and merciless reflection on the theme of the memory of childhood, which over time is erased and distorted in favor of our adult "I". In particular, Stephen King solved such large-scale tasks due to the huge volume of the novel, in which flashbacks played a key role.
Muschietti went the simplest way: he made his picture only of these flashbacks, ignoring the most painful topics of the King's book. Today he is trapped. The most charming part of “It” is filmed. It remains much more difficult - the transformation of tender vulnerable teenagers into tired and battered forty-year-old characters. This is another big question: will it be possible to find an adequate incarnation for them without resorting to untwisted stars? In addition, it is necessary to visualize a colossal mythological background that requires a solid budget and a specific fantasy. In addition, to include in the game the sociopolitical context of our days - you will certainly have to link the new resurrection “It” and the daily life of Derry, scary to say, with Trump's ascent. No matter how strong the enthusiasm of the current audience “It” is, it will be almost impossible to keep it in the second part of the film. At least difficult.
However, so far, something extremely important has been achieved. Muschietti did something that was completely absent from the old film version: he made a film not about a carnivorous monster clown that feeds on children (he remembered that way to most viewers), but about the nature of fear and its overcoming. Fear is “It”, impersonal, amorphous and invulnerable. The victory over him is impossible and extremely simple even for a member of the Losers Club: after all, it is a victory over himself. Overcome yourself, and fear will burst like a balloon. This is probably why the final of this very uncomfortable movie leaves the impression of a happy end. While we all know: “It” will inevitably return.