My baby groundhog buddy came back, but he’s shy all of a sudden. See the little twerp peeking out of the storm drain?
When I posted his picture on Facebook, however, Blog Correspondent Pete Harrison immediately cautioned me that he might NOT be a groundhog. (And me all alone in my little yellow raincoat!)
“It” (2017) succeeds on a number of levels; it’s both an excellent horror movie in its own right and a faithful adaptation of Stephen King’s incredible 1986 novel. It’s rate it a 9 out of 10.
The movie works so well because it captures the book’s key juxtaposition of sweetness with horror. There is a gentle innocence about the story’s circle of adolescent protagonists, who remain kind and good in King’s story — despite facing an incredibly powerful monster while being alienated by adults who are shifty, feckless, or monstrous themselves. The screenwriters understand that juxtaposition, and successfully bring it to the screen. The kids here feel real, three-dimensional, quirky and damned likable. (My favorite was Eddie, the wisecracking hypochondriac, played by Jack Dylan Grazer.) It adds great tension to the story.
And the monster itself is truly terrific, thanks to an inspired, menacing portrayal by Bill Skarsgard and startling visual direction that nicely summons summons both coulrophobia and grotesque (yet sometimes subtle) body horror.
The film might suffer just a little from something its makers couldn’t avoid — so many of its basic story elements are overly familiar tropes. King wrote his novel more than 30 years ago. “Scary” clowns are now omnipresent in popular culture. (It’s something I’ll never understand. Clowns are mysteriously and positively irritating to me. They’re a lot like David Tennant before “Jessica Jones.”) We’ve also seen more than a few alienated adolescents, period settings and shape-shifting monsters that impersonate our worst fears, in everything from “The X-Files” to “Stranger Things” to … other Stephen King adaptations. We don’t want the filmmakers to neglect these key story components. That would ruin the movie. But they feel like overly common tropes in 2017.
Still, this was a great fright flick. I can’t wait for Part 2.
… and I’l be damned if it didn’t give me the shivers.
Watch at your own risk:
I might just post a picture of Randall Flagg every time a friend tells me that they are either reading or rereading Stephen King’s “The Stand.” (This one’s for you, Tim Gatto.)
He really is the greatest villain of all time, beating out even Heath Ledger’s Joker, Hannibal Lecter, Two Face, Nina Meyers, Felix Cortez, and the Hunter Rose incarnation of Grendel. (I’m talking about Flagg, here — not Tim.)
We know that Tim is REreading the tome (he got the extended version, good on him), because he actually read the book before I did. As far back as 1989 or so, Tim and I scribbled quotes from the novel on our textbooks at Longwood High School.
Tim even quizzed me once in the cafeteria to test my reading retention. I passed with flying colors:
“What’s the dog’s name?”
“Kojak. Formerly Big Steve.”
(Do you remember that conversation in the lunchroom, Buddy?) 😀 Whatever. It was more fun than the SAT equivalent.
Anyway, I myself have been stricken with the urge over the past year or so to revisit King’s “IT.” I don’t know why. I’m not afraid of clowns — at all. Clowns are probably the only popular horror archetype whose asses I think I could actually kick (clowns and sparkly vampires, that is). Clowns aren’t scary … they’re really more … punchable. Or … y’know — NOT bulletproof. Also mimes. All human beings, save the full sociopaths, have an active moral center in their brains, and I know that we all privately harbor the truth there that mimes DESERVE to die. (You call yourselves ENTERTAINERS?! F***ing SAY something!! Hello!! Goodbye!! Shakespeare’s sonnets!! The Gettysburg Address!! For God’s sake, just STOP!!)
But I can’t get to “IT” just yet, because my pile of loaned or gift books is high. There are Toby Barlow’s “Sharp Teeth” and King’s “Cycle of the Werewolf,” lent to me by Super Smart Art Girl. Then there are a few books that Crunchy Girl gave me, about … spellcasting? Or something? (Is she technically a Wiccan? We don’t know, because she equivocates on a lot of things.)
Anyway, Tim, safe journey. And because we know the kind of guy you are, we know you’re headed to Nebraska and not Las Vegas (or CIBOLA).
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 