31 Days of Horror 2017, Day 1: A Horror Movie from this Decade

IT (2017)
Let's just get IT out of the way. On the whole, I enjoyed this reboot. It's my opinion that most of King's mini-series adaptations deserve a second shot to overcome the limitation of being made for television in the 90's (or earlier). I think the 2017 envisioning of IT mostly makes changes for the good, with exception to its egregious use of CGI which rendered casting anyone as Pennywise essentially pointless. For all the generated imagery, they could have put a fully digital clown in the film. It sort of flattened a lot of scenes for me, because all I could see was the editing. Bummer.

Nonetheless, I loved the young cast (everyone agrees there, from what I can tell). It's nice to see actual fifteen year olds playing fifteen year olds, rather than twenty-somethings coated in makeup. To boot, these fifteen year olds feel totally natural on screen. I didn't get any "I memorized my lines and here they are" vibes. There are several great, dark moments in the film; most notably, all the events that take place in the well house. Seeing Pennywise spill out of a fridge is quite the spectacle, and the gooey pill ghoul incarnation of IT did make me grimace. I'm cheering too, for the giant Pennywise who emerges from the slideshow projection. Neat! The bullies were improved, and I'm surprised to hear myself say that since I always liked the greasers. But, thrash metal Belch and Mullet Henry were fun.

Looking forward to part two. Is it 2019 yet?

Snippits:
- Pointy teeth Pennywise > hamster teeth Pennywise
- 90's Ben > 10's Ben
- Too much "spooky jitter"
- Please cast the girl who plays young Bev in everything.
- I miss the use of bird identification as a way to ward off evil. Boy scouts rule.
- Everyone one of us has been a kid who got creeped out in the back room of a library, right?
- Where's the soundtrack? Needs more soundtrack.