Now here is a shock for many of you It Chapter 2 is in my top 100 and I will explain why later but for now I will give you the info you expect. This was released last year (2019) and was critically panned pretty much straight away which is why I assume you may of thought this a shock to be in my top 100 list. On the subject of critics I will jump straight to the scores elsewhere with IMDb giving this one a 6.5 out of 10 whilst Rotten Tomatoes gave it even less with a 63%. The director returns for the second part in Andy Muschietti and has a cast of Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean and of course Bill Skarsgård returning as Pennywise. This was produced on a budget of $79m and went on to return $473.1m from the box-office which to me is a success to me. This was the second half of the story of ‘It’. Now I feel the need to remind you all that I have openly told the world that ‘It’ is my favourite book. It stunned me as teenager and is one of very few books I’ve returned to read a second time. If you like or hate these movies I would still recommend the book – just remember that as we move onto the plot.
Part two begins with the actual beginning of the book as a gay couple are attacked by a group of homophobic youths who throw one over a bridge. Pennywise kills him as his boyfriend watches on. Mike Hanlon who has remained behind in Derry realises that Pennywise is back and decides to call his childhood friends and ask them to come back to Derry to fulfil their childhood promise to return and kill It should It return. The six friends that have left Derry have all appeared to of forgotten their history in Derry. Its not until they get closer that some memories start to return. The Losers Club meet for dinner and Mike managers start to help them to start to remember. They later decide to split up and go and find something from their youth to help them to remember. Seems like a silly idea to me knowing that It stalks the streets and sewers to split up and go on tour. So the kids are all grown up and are back to fight the clown or whatever form it’s in now.
I have really kept this plot short as I am going to mention it a bit here as well. The reason I like this second part is because if you have read the book you will know how difficult the story is to make onto film. Those readers of the book that are reading this I challenge you to tell me how you show the ritual of Chud and biting the tongue of your opponent and how you ask a mythical turtle fights a mythical spider. ‘It’ as an entity is not defined and if you want to visualise something that is apparently so scary that you cannot actually see its form. How do you put that on film for a audience to get how or what it looks like. My approach to this movie was full of fear and potential crapness. For this reason I was really pleasantly surprised and actually enjoyed it. Whether it was played just for laughs and not for scares I can see why that was raised as an argument. I can also appreciate why people argue about having to split up and search which did happen in the book to a certain extent with the group finding their own way around the town and remembering stories that happened in their childhood. Which in theory should have been in part 1 if you think about it. This may not be for the purist of Horror as it was amusing and was playing on the lighter side when those horror fans are desperate for scares. For me not having seen this movie lots and lots of times I have to judge on what I have seen and I think they have carried this off just about as well as possible and I appreciate it.
Next up is another sequel movie with a 2 in the name, this one again is hated by many but love by me..
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