Last night my friends and I went to watch the movie IT.
IT (in one of its many forms) as Pennywise the Dancing Clown
I did not expect it to be scary for me, due to being very desensitised to horror movies, having grew up watching all sorts of horror, gore, and slasher films.
(The first horror movie I remembered watching was Child’s Play, I was a pre-schooler back then, and thoroughly enjoyed it.)
As predicted, the movie did not scare me at all, however, what I did not expect was to find it really sad.
Unfortunately, the movie IT does quite heavily rely on one of the horror movie techniques, which I dislike, the unexpected “cheap jump scares”.
I joked to my friends after the movie, that Pennywise must really have a fetish for red balloons, and doesn’t seem particularly competent in capturing children.
The movie appears to touch base on issues surrounding the dark side of humanity, dealing of loss, struggle of childhood/adolescence, coming to term with one’s femininity, and fear of the unknown.
The story takes the audiences through the main characters’ collective journey, in an attempt to conquer these issues, which are presented in different context for each of the character.
Personally, I found that some of human characters were in fact just as, if not more, monstrous and horrible as the entity which the Losers’ Club had named IT.
My understanding is that IT feeds on children and their fear, because it needs to do so to survive.
However, some of the abuse and violence inflicted upon the members of the Losers’ Club were done so by other fellow human beings, and for their own pleasure or to “compensate” for problems that they themselves were suffering from.
After watching the movie, it made me somewhat curious to read the book version of IT, since I suspect the book will dive deeper into the issues and topics mentioned.
I see the movie being more than just about an evil monster/entity residing in a small town.
Overall, it was a solid horror film. Hopefully they will not incorporate, or at least cut down on the “jump scare” tactic in the sequel.
Miss Rag Doll 