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IT: Chapter 2

Started by Goldentony, May 09, 2019, 05:14:15 PM

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Cuellar


H-O-W-L

Quote from: Cuellar on September 12, 2019, 10:57:14 AM
One bit that I didn't get, and I don't know if it was a reference to the book or the original minseries because I'm pretty sure it wasn't referenced in the first film, is when Eddie gets vommed on by the weird zombie leper in the basement some rock and roll music (can't remember what song it was now, Beach Boys?) blasts out for about 3 seconds, then stops.

???

It's not a refernece to either, it's a self-contained bit of peculiarity. Though the leper vomming is a reference to the fact the leper voms on him in the sewer in Part 1, triggering him into a furious rage and making him start the murdering of the clown.


Cuellar

It was bizarre and shit.

Goldentony

I thought it was funny but aye i'd have gone for something that hadn't just been in Deadpool. Starting to get why people think this is tonally all over the shop, that comes after the fucking terrifying bit with yer man in a bag chained to the roof, in a film with a foetus moth flying out of a haunted biscuit, two kids being mutilated and New Kids On The Block gags

neveragain

That creepy chemist was Skarsgard with bad make-up, wasn't he? I was confused as he wasn't revealed to be part of an IT fantasy. Because of that - when Eddie was strangling that thing in the cellar, I thought it would cut back to him actually strangling the pharmacist.

There's a fair few quibbles but I enjoyed watching it.

Bad Ambassador

Quote from: neveragain on September 13, 2019, 02:51:09 PM
That creepy chemist was Skarsgard with bad make-up, wasn't he?

No, it was the same actor who played the 27-years-younger version of the same character in the first film.

H-O-W-L

Quote from: neveragain on September 13, 2019, 02:51:09 PM
That creepy chemist was Skarsgard with bad make-up, wasn't he? I was confused as he wasn't revealed to be part of an IT fantasy. Because of that - when Eddie was strangling that thing in the cellar, I thought it would cut back to him actually strangling the pharmacist.


Funnily enough, he was part of an IT fantasy in the novel and the telemovie!

This shit is so confusing.

neveragain

Quote from: Bad Ambassador on September 13, 2019, 04:23:48 PM
No, it was the same actor who played the 27-years-younger version of the same character in the first film.

Ah! I could barely remember the first.

mjwilson

Quote from: H-O-W-L on September 12, 2019, 10:50:02 AM
IT as written is almost unfilmable as a motion picture due to its episodic structure

and the children having sex

H-O-W-L

Saw it tonight. Pretty alright. Too long, but otherwise decent. Like the first I suppose.

Brundle-Fly

Agree with a lot of the points made about the tonal shifts. I absolutely enjoyed it for what it was, a homage to eighties horror blockbusters, (Evil Dead, Elm Street, The Thing, The Shining, American Werewolf, Twilight Zone-The Movie, Poltergeist, Creepshow etc) If I was a teenager now I would be crazy about this and that's who it's made for, really.

I could have done with fewer wisecracks (especially, "Oh, there he is") because it undercuts all the peril too much; like they're embarrassed to be making a monster movie but at least it wasn't quite as joky as that The Predator. (2018) smugathon, but only just.

The 'You suck' bit stuck out for me like a sore clown thumb too. I bet that was bolted on in the edit suite by some interfering studio bod. "We need to feel more Richie is completely humiliated. Dub on some heckling. (PAUSE) Hey y' know? I could do it."

And there was far too much try hard swearing and I think they threw away Henry. They should've had him explicitly serve as Pennywise's lackey for longer.

On the whole, I had a good time and would watch it again quite easily; mainly, because like most contemporary blockbusters, I will have forgotten everything about it by next week.

H-O-W-L

Here's my spoilerific thoughts on the movie after a day of pondering it:

It was too long, and certain elements straight up needed the axe. Not quality-wise, but purely for runtime and fluidity. The movie is a bit of a clunker, even if I loved a lot of the scenes.

I think the bleacher scene was well executed but utterly needless. I would have cut it in entirety. We know Pennywise kills kids. We know he abuses their weaknesses and fears and vulnerabilities. It was sort of pointless and, in my opinion, verged on the very edge of being tasteless. A second more of his chops clamped around her face and I would have hated it. I'm not a huge fan of violence against kids (I mean, if you are there might be something wrong with you) but I did like the unflinchingness of Part 1 and elements of Part 2. The little girl, however, was a character constructed to be a sympathy-tug and suffer. Dean, the little skater that gets chomped, actually served a plot purpose, but Vicky only really existed to get eaten and did not further the greater plot in the least.

The Dean scene in the funhouse was absolutely horrific and I really didn't expect them to kill him off, nor did I expect them to do it in a way that was both horrendously gruesome but also tasteful at the same time. The sudden cut to the glass being blacked-out with only a bloodsmear over it was far more effective than Georgie's death while also being tasteful. Leaving that up to the imagination rather than giving us a 15 second scene of him crawling away wounded and crying before Crookycunt snatched him away like they did with Georgie was far more effective.

The scene at the beginning from Adrian's POV was really well done. That ominous shot of Pennywise on the riverbank is so effective it is probably my favourite shot of the entire film. Him openly eating his chest out infront of his boyfriend is a thing from the novel, too, and I liked the execution of it because it reclarified that Clinkyrink the Dancing Cunt is an actual knowing, taunting cunt who enjoys the shit he does.

I would probably have also cut the Bowers plot after he's revealed to be in a psych ward, too. It would let down book and telemovie fanatics for sure, but he ultimately served literally no purpose for the greater plot, which was changed to be a lot more about them rediscovering themselves after almost a lifetime of forgetting who they were than the more down-the-line battle of wits that the finale was. Were Bowers to be used more to serve that purpose then I'd be quids in, but the movie really does not need more added in its theatrical format. For a supercut, sure, but for this theatrical cut it was too much. And Bowers really served no purpose. I did like that they reintegrated the cut scene where he washes out with all the dead kids though.

I think turning Wankynoose into a big spider-clown instead of just a big spider was a great choice though, mostly because Skarsgard is electrifying as Bonkynose. I liked how his arms were made out of thousands of tiny baby Pennywise arms, though the entire theater erupted in laughter when Crankycock turned into a flat-headed baby at the end. I liked that he pawed at their hands and lay there horrified and begging and wheezing as they tore out his heart and squished it. That was super effective.

My big shout-out for favourite scenes though go to three specific moments:

1) the Native American vision quest that Bill has where you see a primordial IT in a horrendous bird form made out of lights, spindles of wire, tendons, and bone assaulting little doll-faced Native American puppets before transforming into this hideous light-eyed giant proto-clown, before the Natives fought back and trapped it in the box.  The whole sequence was really well done visually and captured the amorphous, cosmic nightmare of Crunkydunk from the novel very well. It was so striking to me that it's made me veritably obsessed.

2) The reprise of the above during the final sequence; that utterly horrific scene where it's revealed that Wunkydunk spewed tentacles out of the box and literally physically slit the Native American tribesmen that tried to trap him. That closeup shot of one of them contorting from a stoic metal mask into a legitimate scream of horror has been stuck in my mind's eye for 48 hours because it was so well-done and spooky. It's graphic but also has enough features missing to be implicitly terrible.

3) The scene where Winkybonk taunts Richie at the Paul Bunyan statue. It was really reminiscent of Tim Curry's portrayal in that he was outright appearing in his 'natural' form of Pennywise during broad daylight and telling him to straight up fuck off or die rather than using some oblique "ooh imma gitcha" scare in some abstract monster form like he did with the others. I fucking hated the leper scene because it made no sense for Eddie to go down there. Skarsgard really showed his chops in this film; the venom with which Hunkyfuck speaks to the characters ("For 27 years, I dreamt of you. I craved you." is so well delivered) is so palpable I loved it.

If I had to use an arsehole's measurement system I'd probably give this a 60 in theaters and 65 in home format, whereas Part 1 I'd give a hard 70. This is really not the kind of movie that works in theaters, for me, I guess, merely because of its length.

I love long movies (my favourite movie is Casino, which is ten minutes longer but feels half the bloody length) but sitting through this whole movie in all its graphic unrelenting nature in a theater was truly gruelling. The final sequence actually gave me a headache because of the constant flashing and I'm not normally that photosensitive.

kalowski

Quote from: H-O-W-L on September 16, 2019, 10:32:43 PM
Here's my spoilerific thoughts on the movie after a day of pondering it:

It was too long, and certain elements straight up needed the axe. Not quality-wise, but purely for runtime and fluidity. The movie is a bit of a clunker, even if I loved a lot of the scenes.

I think the bleacher scene was well executed but utterly needless. I would have cut it in entirety. We know Pennywise kills kids. We know he abuses their weaknesses and fears and vulnerabilities. It was sort of pointless and, in my opinion, verged on the very edge of being tasteless. A second more of his chops clamped around her face and I would have hated it. I'm not a huge fan of violence against kids (I mean, if you are there might be something wrong with you) but I did like the unflinchingness of Part 1 and elements of Part 2. The little girl, however, was a character constructed to be a sympathy-tug and suffer. Dean, the little skater that gets chomped, actually served a plot purpose, but Vicky only really existed to get eaten and did not further the greater plot in the least.

The Dean scene in the funhouse was absolutely horrific and I really didn't expect them to kill him off, nor did I expect them to do it in a way that was both horrendously gruesome but also tasteful at the same time. The sudden cut to the glass being blacked-out with only a bloodsmear over it was far more effective than Georgie's death while also being tasteful. Leaving that up to the imagination rather than giving us a 15 second scene of him crawling away wounded and crying before Crookycunt snatched him away like they did with Georgie was far more effective.

The scene at the beginning from Adrian's POV was really well done. That ominous shot of Pennywise on the riverbank is so effective it is probably my favourite shot of the entire film. Him openly eating his chest out infront of his boyfriend is a thing from the novel, too, and I liked the execution of it because it reclarified that Clinkyrink the Dancing Cunt is an actual knowing, taunting cunt who enjoys the shit he does.

I would probably have also cut the Bowers plot after he's revealed to be in a psych ward, too. It would let down book and telemovie fanatics for sure, but he ultimately served literally no purpose for the greater plot, which was changed to be a lot more about them rediscovering themselves after almost a lifetime of forgetting who they were than the more down-the-line battle of wits that the finale was. Were Bowers to be used more to serve that purpose then I'd be quids in, but the movie really does not need more added in its theatrical format. For a supercut, sure, but for this theatrical cut it was too much. And Bowers really served no purpose. I did like that they reintegrated the cut scene where he washes out with all the dead kids though.

I think turning Wankynoose into a big spider-clown instead of just a big spider was a great choice though, mostly because Skarsgard is electrifying as Bonkynose. I liked how his arms were made out of thousands of tiny baby Pennywise arms, though the entire theater erupted in laughter when Crankycock turned into a flat-headed baby at the end. I liked that he pawed at their hands and lay there horrified and begging and wheezing as they tore out his heart and squished it. That was super effective.

My big shout-out for favourite scenes though go to three specific moments:

1) the Native American vision quest that Bill has where you see a primordial IT in a horrendous bird form made out of lights, spindles of wire, tendons, and bone assaulting little doll-faced Native American puppets before transforming into this hideous light-eyed giant proto-clown, before the Natives fought back and trapped it in the box.  The whole sequence was really well done visually and captured the amorphous, cosmic nightmare of Crunkydunk from the novel very well. It was so striking to me that it's made me veritably obsessed.

2) The reprise of the above during the final sequence; that utterly horrific scene where it's revealed that Wunkydunk spewed tentacles out of the box and literally physically slit the Native American tribesmen that tried to trap him. That closeup shot of one of them contorting from a stoic metal mask into a legitimate scream of horror has been stuck in my mind's eye for 48 hours because it was so well-done and spooky. It's graphic but also has enough features missing to be implicitly terrible.

3) The scene where Winkybonk taunts Richie at the Paul Bunyan statue. It was really reminiscent of Tim Curry's portrayal in that he was outright appearing in his 'natural' form of Pennywise during broad daylight and telling him to straight up fuck off or die rather than using some oblique "ooh imma gitcha" scare in some abstract monster form like he did with the others. I fucking hated the leper scene because it made no sense for Eddie to go down there. Skarsgard really showed his chops in this film; the venom with which Hunkyfuck speaks to the characters ("For 27 years, I dreamt of you. I craved you." is so well delivered) is so palpable I loved it.

If I had to use an arsehole's measurement system I'd probably give this a 60 in theaters and 65 in home format, whereas Part 1 I'd give a hard 70. This is really not the kind of movie that works in theaters, for me, I guess, merely because of its length.

I love long movies (my favourite movie is Casino, which is ten minutes longer but feels half the bloody length) but sitting through this whole movie in all its graphic unrelenting nature in a theater was truly gruelling. The final sequence actually gave me a headache because of the constant flashing and I'm not normally that photosensitive.
I've read the book and can't remember a single one of these scenes. To be fair, the last 100 pages were just a nightmare from which I was trying to escape. Awful stuff.

H-O-W-L

Quote from: kalowski on September 16, 2019, 10:38:14 PM
I've read the book and can't remember a single one of these scenes. To be fair, the last 100 pages were just a nightmare from which I was trying to escape. Awful stuff.

Most of these scenes are not in the book, which correlates with my own feelings on it: I like the concepts and ideas King is presenting but the actual writing and the wackiness he reduces his higher concepts to makes me want to punch his fucking Muppet-like face inverted. He looks like my nan, too, and she's quite an arse, so that's all the worse.

beanheadmcginty

Was the original plan to cast Amy Adams as adult Bev? Because the young Bev looks absolutely nothing like Jessica Chastain but almost exactly like Amy Adams.

Cuellar

That actually makes a lot of sense

SavageHedgehog

I don't know, but I remember a lot of people assumed that Chastain would be cast as adult Bev at the time of the first film as the director had worked with her before (Mama).

I personally enjoyed this a lot more than the first one, which I didn't care for at all. A lot of that might be because it deals with the aspect of the book (which I felt was a very mixed bag) I found to be most interesting, which is the notion of repressed (traumatic or otherwise) memories. I also felt the "losers" were a lot more rounded out in this one, in the first there were about 3.5 personalities between the 7 characters, here I at least got a little senes of who each of them were. Jay Ryan seemed very out of place but as a whole I thought the cast were good.

I do agree that a lot of the set pieces were clunky and in general I find the movie version of Pennywise to be one step above whatever the Freddy knock-off in Brainscan was called. The really nasty moment with the girl with the birthmark was quite effective, otherwise it's an embarrassing character which feels as if it had been designed by a committee of people with Heath Ledger Joker avatars. Despite that I thought the finale was good dumb (and loud!) blockbuster fun, though pretty far from "horror" in any meaningful sense.

Quote from: H-O-W-L on September 12, 2019, 10:50:02 AM
The problem with Part 1, which is likely the case with Part 2, is that they reference shit that only makes sense if you've seen the miniseries or the book, the former of which actually set up and added context to most of what happened (even if it was shit all over frankly) and the latter obviously established it in the first place. Even minor shit like "beep beep richie".

The same is true of the recent adaptation of Pet Semetary, where one of the characters makes a non-sequitur reference to Oz, the Great and Terrible which is part of a thread in the book but means nothing in the context of the film. (Just before posting this I googled and saw that this was indeed expounding on a deleted scene, and was actually Jason Clarke's idea!).

willy crossit

the grown up eddie in this is ziggy sobotka off of 'the wire'

DukeDeMondo

SPOILERS

I saw this earlier today and had fun enough with it while it was on. The ghoulies were enjoyably grotesque looking articles, the animated sequences with the Native Americans were striking sorts of things, and it was nice to finally get to see big old stompy Paul Bunyan in action after all this time. The Thing homage was fun, I enjoyed that more than some of you lot did, but was The Thing ever mentioned at any point prior to that? Was it ever playing away on a telly in the background of a scene or advertised on a billboard anywhere even or anything like this? In the book – and the miniseries – it's I Was A Teenage Werewolf that's referenced most heavily, but they make something of that, they make sure you know the kids have seen it and that at least one of them was shaken up by it. It boils down to a bit more than just someone getting all hairy and someone else quoting a line of dialogue from that particular film.

I did like the "Here's Johnny!" I liked how it quite slyly positioned Bev's dad and husband as not only descendants of Jack Torrance, but descendants of Jack Nicholson's Jack Torrance, something which must have annoyed Stephen King at least a little (although if he was annoyed he certainly didn't show it, he was having a right old time of it to himself there).

Anyway, since leaving the cinema I've found myself really struggling to work out how the fuck it managed to go on for near three hours. There's virtually nothing to it. When I first heard it was going to be the best bit of three hours long I was really excited. Assumed that meant that they would be properly sinking into the thing this time out, properly exploring Derry and its past and the ways in which this IT has been poisoning the place from day dot, properly leaning into all that cosmic channering and CHUDding about and carrying on in the last couple hundred pages. We got hardly any of any of that. I know an adaptation is its own thing and we shouldn't be watching the film with one eye on the book, but come on, now. What excuse in the world can there be for the last two and three quarter hours of a big budget five hour long adaptation of IT to amount to little more than "they each get a call, they each come home, they each get a fright, they each spend ten minutes shouting at the IT." I mean for Jesus sake. Also, if you're going to spend the first two thirds of the film making jokes about the way the book ends, you'd better have a decent alternative up your sleeve.

The nod to A Nightmare On Elm Street 5 at the close was apt, for this felt even more like an oddly well-acted and expensive looking Elm Street sequel than the first one did.

I get why they didn't open the first film with Mike making the calls, I get why we've got IT: Weans and IT: Grown Ups, rather than two seperate loads of IT: Both (although who knows, maybe they'll pull a Watchmen for a future home video release and thread the two together "like they were always meant to be seen!"), but there's a reason why those calls are made at the start of the book – and the start of the miniseries, for that matter – and not halfway through. When Mike's phoning round being all "listen, it's back, you best get back to Derry right now for it's all back, you see, the whole thing, back now in Derry", there's mystery, there's intrigue, there's dread in the air, there's what the fuck is this, now? What is this that's back and that is so bad that one of these Grown Ups has had to kill himself in a bathtub over the head of it? What is it that they can't remember or don't want to remember? There is no "what is it that's back?" here. We already know what it is that's back. There's absolutely no need to drag all that stuff out to the extent that it's dragged out here. Especially not if you're going to do that at the expense of all the cool fucking mad old wild-headed shit you should be doing.

And I'll add my "not remotely scary" to everyone else's. At the climax of one of the big THIS IS SCARY NOW! bits my partner turned to me and whispered "what certificate is this?" in an "isn't this supposed to be scary?" sort of way. The two other people in the cinema laughed through most of the "scares" also, and not always because Bill Hader had prompted them to do so.

(It was a really early screening, I'm sure later screenings are playing to more than four people)

I dunno.

H-O-W-L

The bit at the end where IT crumples into a tiny baby man and a comical FLUMPFH sound plays as his head splats out like a big scrotum got the entire theater laughing raucously. I saw it with abouuut ten other cinemagoers (my sister included) and everyone choked out in laughter despite not wanting to. I don't think it was meant to be funny.

I do love the setpiece of them all pawing out IT's heart as it struggles and whines and tries to fight back, and especially how IT tries to joke about it.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: DukeDeMondo on September 19, 2019, 01:13:41 AMI get why they didn't open the first film with Mike making the calls, I get why we've got IT: Weans and IT: Grown Ups, rather than two seperate loads of IT: Both (although who knows, maybe they'll pull a Watchmen for a future home video release and thread the two together "like they were always meant to be seen!"), but there's a reason why those calls are made at the start of the book – and the start of the miniseries, for that matter – and not halfway through. When Mike's phoning round being all "listen, it's back, you best get back to Derry right now for it's all back, you see, the whole thing, back now in Derry", there's mystery, there's intrigue, there's dread in the air, there's what the fuck is this, now? What is this that's back and that is so bad that one of these Grown Ups has had to kill himself in a bathtub over the head of it? What is it that they can't remember or don't want to remember? There is no "what is it that's back?" here. We already know what it is that's back. There's absolutely no need to drag all that stuff out to the extent that it's dragged out here. Especially not if you're going to do that at the expense of all the cool fucking mad old wild-headed shit you should be doing.

This is a good point that hasn't been made enough - perhaps because we've all known and accepted that it'll be a two-parter "Kids" and "Grown Ups" affair since long before the first one even came out.  But you're right, aren't you?  The book was written that way for a reason other than just being a fancy non-linear storytelling device.  I understand it'd be harder to divide it into two films that way (though I suppose it could have been released in two parts a la Nymphomaniac), but the miniseries managed to resemble the bones of the book pretty well in just about three hours total, so I don't think it's completely outside the realms of possibility.  As it is, we've got about five hours of this spread over two years and a lot of it feels like padding.

Goldentony

Would have loved to see IT structured like that and hopefully a fan edit happens, but would anyone with any namer value at all have signed on back then so there's nae reboot or head swap shite? you had McConaughey and Idris Elba doing a more respectable sci fi outing and IT was a horror film with a clown with no names and a director with one film which happened to make more money than a small country. It went all fucking backwards. It should be Idris Elba up and his cowboy hat going "IT'S PRETTY DARK...IT LOOKS LIKE SOME SORTA TOWER...A DARK TOWER....DARK TOWER 2"

Custard

Yeah, they wanted to see how the first film did before they risked funding the second. I agree that a fan edit could make a really good version more inline with the book, though. Would like to see that

I don't think this is the last film, either. It's made far too much money. I could see a prequel or two happening, though obviously it'd have no source material to follow, so could go a bit Game Of Thrones. Though a film based around IT in a different time could actually be quite interesting. Maybe

EDIT - Seems like ideas are already being discussed https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2480365/bill-skarsgard-says-it-3-ideas-have-already-been-discussed

And a "super-cut" of both films!

Bazooka

This/IT sounds atrocious, I'm glad it's not getting a release in  China so I don't need to hate watch it

Goldentony

watch the film you little bollocks

QDRPHNC



I knew I recognised that distinctive blue stage in the park. Here's Q Jr. in it about 10 years ago.

up_the_hampipe

I thought the mirror room scene and the little girl under the bleachers was cool, and the opening was extremely unpleasant (in a compelling way). Couple of decent jump scares, but far far too long and bogged down in a lot of cliches. But it could have been worse, at least it seemed to tie together well with the first film (which was a lot better). I don't know why anyone would think Skasgard's performance is anything other than brilliant, he's a fucking psycho genius and he deserved better.

H-O-W-L

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on September 29, 2019, 09:51:54 PMI don't know why anyone would think Skasgard's performance is anything other than brilliant, he's a fucking psycho genius and he deserved better.

The bits where he can really play Pennywise as a knowing, cruel bastard rather than The Luring Clown (which is why I dislike the bleacher scene) are so fucking good, he really embodies the character and the makeup and you would be so fucking pressed to go "That's Bill Skarsgard, acting as Pennywise" on your own. I really think he and Curry are on the same level of skill when it comes to portraying Nutter Clown Man, Wankynoose.

That bit when he's taunting Richie is so good because you can tell he fucking hates this cunt.

up_the_hampipe

I think Skarsgård's performance is Heath Ledger's Joker in terms of taking an established character to its extreme. He is Pennywise now, unless Joaquin Phoenix comes along in 10 years for an origin story. Curry should never be forgotten, but honestly it doesn't even seem in the same ballpark for me.

Cuellar

I thought it was hammy. The way he says 'I'm Pennywise, the DANCING CLOWN' in the first film when he's in the drain is cringe tier.