Halloween Week: John Carpenter's The Fog movie review

Here's what you need to know; one-hundred years since the founding of the quaint little California town of Antonio bay, the celebrations are marred by strange occurrences around the town, the disappearance of a trawler and her crew, and the revelation that the town's founders were murderers. But the fun hasn't started yet as on the town's anniversary, a fog moves in from the sea, one the swallows everything it touches and shrouds a vengeful evil with its own plans for Antonio bay's anniversary.
So Halloween Week this year is going to be six reviews instead of eight, me and my family went out for the weekend for some family time and shopping, and on top of not having the time and the hotel not having internet, I just wanted to spend that time with my family. I'm back home now though and with Halloween so, so close, there's only one thing to do, get spooky.

The film opens with, of all things, a line from an Edgar Allen Poe poem, and I've read the poem a few times now, trying figure out why it opens this film, but I'm not huge into poetry, so I'm still working on it. But with the film's story in mind, maybe the poem refers to our inability to prevent death, with life being the golden sand and death being the pitiless wave, death embodied in this film by vengeful ghosts, told you I'm not into poetry, now I'm going to stop before I hurt myself. Things kick off though with a spooky story told around a campfire, which is just perfect. The legend of the Elizabeth Dane and her crew's fate serves as our jumping off point for the film's events, with the old man telling the tale of a ghostly fog and a sunken ship, one who's crew await the day they can find the camp fire that led them to their deaths. It's quite a poetic intro in and of itself, framing the events of the film within a classic campfire tale, where truth has been distorted to maintain a legacy. If you're hoping for a slightly faster paced horror movie, The Fog will not be your friend, because it really, really takes its time. As spooky events occur around the town, we are introduced to our heroes, with the film opting for an ensemble cast rather than any central protagonist. Jamie Lee Curtis is in this film as a hitchhiker that falls in love with Antonio Bay local Nick surprisingly fast, not that I fault either of them, we are talking about Jamie Lee Curtis in her 20's. After those two, we have the town's radio DJ, the smooth voiced Stevie Wayne, and Father Malone, the town's priest and the first person to figure out what's going on.

The film doesn't take the piss that much though, giving us our first taste of its antagonist around the twenty-minute mark, introducing us to the revenants; the murderous, undead crew of the sunken Clipper as they silently slaughter the crew of the trawler. Now if you're a horror normie who thinks horror is gore and jumpscares, you know, like my brother, The Fog will not be your friend either, because it's a film that relies far more on its atmosphere to be scary, which makes it more my kind of horror. Take the trawler scene for example, a scene that builds the dread as the fog slowly surrounds the boat, literally creeping into its engine and cabin, and the silent ruthlessness of the ghosts is a very strange thing to describe. There's a constant feeling of danger every time the fog shows up, and that's naturally down to the ghosts, a group of lepers who move silently and kill you quickly and painfully, and who can hide right in front of you behind the titular fog. there's an inescapability to them that makes them so effective as villains, with the fog seeping under doors and eroding the environment around it, figuratively choking our heroes as it closes in around them, the revenants never far behind. But after that initial encounter with the ghosts, the film slows back down, giving us more time with its characters as they carry on towards their respective goals. It's at this point that the film also digs into the tale of the Elizabeth Dane, exposing the horror of the tale as the true fate of the ship and her crew is revealed. And like a lot of good horror films, it gets dark, with you seeing the villains more as victims by the end, and a lingering sense of injustice over not just them, but our surviving heroes as well, who have inherited the guilt of their ancestors, cursed through no fault of their own.

Where The Fog gets a lot of its effectiveness is that lull though, giving us time to get to know our characters and get attached to them, attached enough that the dread is palpable, even with the film's complete lack of any real gore and habit of hiding its kills behind the fog. I find this brand of horror far more effective than the normie brand, because while the normie brand can be scary in the moment, it doesn't stay with you or give you the chills, but this does. It's a film that makes the weather a fearsome and unstoppable force of evil, and there's just something really unnerving about the revenants who, without us ever getting a really good look or even making a sound, become an intimidating threat. As the film goes on, it only manages to pull us deeper into its characters, the radio DJ in particular, who stays at her post to warn the townsfolk of the danger in the fog, even as it comes literally knocking at her door and threatens to kill her son. It's all in this film's final thirty minutes where the shit goes down, when the fog comes ashore and starts hunting our characters, with the highlight once again going to the radio DJ and her final stand in the light house as the fog closes in on all sides, with the same fate looming over the rest of our heroes at the church. Once again, The Fog is much more about building atmosphere than hitting you with scares; it's all about the dread as the ghosts inch closer and closer to their victims. Then it ends, and the film's final moments is actually one of my favourite things about it. Like any good campfire horror story, there's an ambiguity to its conclusion, a feeling of unfinished business that'll be hanging in your mind as John Carpenter's excellent soundtrack plays over the credits and rounds out the story in a very poetic way, if we're still looking at it as a classic ghost story, which it undeniably is.

Now What Kind of Fog Blows Against the Wind

The Fog is my kind of horror story; playing out less like your average horror movie and more like a timeless campfire story of ghosts, revenge, and an evil that lurks in plain sight in something has harmless as a cloud of fog. The fog is a threat our heroes cannot fight or run from, it's merely a vessel of vengeance that they have unjustly become the victims of. It's probably not an easy film to sell if I'm honest, it's one of those horror films that horror normies would find really boring, but there is a spookiness and a dread about this film, and that's something I really appreciate about horror films. Like Halloween before it and The Thing after, The Fog is a perfect little Halloween movie, and like Halloween, it's probably going to become another annual ritual for me to watch this film, and hopefully scare my nephews with it, and it's definitely worth watching.

Halloween Week: Ready or Not movie review

Here's what you need to know; Grace already knew that her new husband's family, the rich and powerful overlords of a massive gaming company, were a little crazy, but when she finds herself playing hide and seek with them on her wedding night, she discovers that crazy is an understatement. The rules are simple, she cannot leave the house, she has to stay hidden until morning, and if they find her, they sacrifice her to Satan, but with no chance of escape or rescue and the clock ticking, it'll be one hell of a night.
This is a film that snuck up on me; I didn't know it existed until some of the YouTube film critics I'm subscribed to put up reviews of it. Fast forward a few weeks and my sister and I go out for a meal and a film, and while she originally wanted to watch The Lion King, she soon changed her mind and we went to see Ready or Not, not sure what made her change her mind but I am glad she did, because The Lion King is a piece of shit and the fact that it's made a billion and a half at the box office makes my blood itch. I digress, the point is I saw Ready or Not, and it was good.

Something that I was curious about was the film's runtime; it's ninety-five minutes long, which is surprisingly short, but at the same time, for a film with a premise like this, any longer and it'd almost certainly start to strain. The film's prologue throws you in at the deep end with the last game of Hide and Seek they played before bouncing forward to the wedding. It's naturally here that we are introduced to our characters; Grace, our newlywed lamb, Alex, the hubby, and the rest of his family who are a bunch of dickheads. But two things stick out in this opening act; the film's biting script, and Daniel, and both for similar reasons. Daniel is easily the film's strongest character; being a relatively sane person in the midst of his insane relatives, and a person who's experience with said insane relatives has broken his spirit and reduced him to a cowardly, cynical alcoholic. Over the course of the film, we see the extent to which his family's devil worshiping has affected him, making his loyalties surprisingly nebulous as he wrestles with doing the right thing or letting an innocent girl who he may or may not want to bone die. And don't be fooled by the appearance, Grace is one tough lamb; far from your stereotypical horror victim who always makes the wrong choices, she fights back against her hunters, getting out of tight spots through a combination of luck and rugged determination. It's that dash of Ellen Ripley that makes her far more compelling to watch than your typical horror chick, her will to survive in this crazy situation, and her practicality, from using teapots as weapons to using her wedding dress as a makeshift first aid kit, in short, if you happen to be a rabid feminist, this might be your kind of chick, but then again, she's also smoking hot, so maybe not.

And if you're the kind of rabid feminist that thinks a character facing adversity is somehow misogynistic, then this film definitely isn't for you because Grace gets the shit kicked out of her. By the end of the film, she is a mess; having been stabbed, cut, shot, drugged, fallen from heights, impaled, hit in the face, you know, normal hide and seek stuff. And the film doesn't shy away from the violence, it's almost like it enjoys the cruelty as Grace goes to ever escalating extremes to stay alive and the family gets ever more frantic and aggressive. And like Grace, the family aren't trained killers, they're idiots; a gaggle of rich twats with archaic weapons they don't know how to use, whose incompetence as a group is one of the reasons Grace manages to best them. Daniel is, as I said before, easily the most interesting of the bunch, being the one who's beyond caring about what happens to him or his family. But the husband actually has an interesting ark in the film as well, one that may disappoint you if you were hoping it would go a certain, less nihilistic way. Obviously to say why would be a spoiler, but there's a point where he makes a choice and while I get it if you hate that choice, I think it's kind of interesting, and it makes the film's finale very sweet, in a sadistic sort of way. The rest of them are useless though, one of them is a cocaine addict who keeps accidentally killing the maids, the father of the family gets funnier and funnier as the night goes on and he goes even more off the rails, and Daniel's wife's name is Charity, which is easily the most ironic name in the film because she's a cold, selfish "gold digging whore."

It's weird to me that the film manages to balance the family and Grace's cat and mouse game so effectively, as you're almost as compelled by the family's hunt as you are by Grace, and all of the characters, as monstrous as they may be, are likable in their own ways, the Butler for example might as well be a Terminator, and the aunt's fanaticism about the game reaches comical levels several times. This film certainly has its comedy moments and can be really funny, darkly funny but still funny, but last year's Halloween should be taking notes here because while the film is funny, it's also nail-bitingly intense. There are several white-knuckle moments in Ready or Not, as Grace either skulks in the shadows or runs for her life from the family. There are two scenes in particular; one in a kitchen and one involving a nail, I won't say any more other than the one with the nail, yeah, that shit was great, you know it's coming and you'll be on the edge of your seat until it happens, at which point you'll have recoiled back into your seat in abject horror. And horror this indeed is, after watching it, I'm not surprised that my sister was IDed because this film is bloody, as I said before, the film doesn't shy away from showing the most brutal of shit, we're talking about point blank headshots, people having holes in them where they shouldn't, metal things going into places they shouldn't, that sounds dirty but I really want to be more specific because it's so cool, if graphic violence is your cup of tea. 

Ready or Not is, however, a very simply film to describe; it's a film about a satanic game of hide and seek between a likable, resourceful hot chick and a bunch of likable, useless twats, it has moments of gut busting hilarity and moments of arse puckering intensity, usually back to back, and it never stops being entertaining. But with the story this film tells, it is also a film that needs to nail the ending, if you'll pardon the pun. Ready or Not is great, but it's a film that could be utterly ruined by a shit ending, luckily, Ready or Not's ending is basically perfect in my opinion. It's such a satisfying, darkly hilarious ending, one that comes out of nowhere and had me grinning with glee. And it's something I will never spoil, putting it on the table now, I will never spoil the ending of Ready or Not for anyone, it's something that truly must be seen. There are people online trying to dig for deeper meanings in the film, which isn't surprising, I know I've done it with other films, but I don't think this film is trying to be that deep. I don't think commentary on wealth inequality was the idea here, the film takes shots at the rich for sure, but I don't think it's anything more than surface level, which is fine because it's not the kind of film that needs to be deep. There are more ponderous aspects to it but they're always related to character motivation, and commentary on class that is not. I also caught wind of a Variety article proclaiming that the dress is a "powerful tool of Feminism and murder," which is a slightly unsettling title if you ask me. Whether or not that was the intention is irrelevant as that really doesn't factor into the film, but as usual, politicisation is fun, just ask pretty much anyone who's talking about Joker. Again though, I just don't think this is that kind of movie.


I'll Give You a Ten Second Head Start
Ready or Not is another one of those films that I watched on a whim and ended up really enjoying; it's an effective, tight, straight forward little thriller that I could watch again and again. The film juggles its horror and comedy perfectly and grips you with its intriguing and likable cast of heroes and villains, and its a film that gets its hands dirty and enjoys doing it. It reminds me of Overlord in some ways, not in the sense that it's a film that I'd been anticipating for years, but in the sense that it's a film that delivers what its promising; it sells itself as a thrilling, violent, darkly funny game of hide and seek and that's exactly what it is. It's definitely not for everyone; it's not for the squeamish, but this film, like Overlord, just hits the spot for me, and it's definitely worth watching.

Halloween Week: Scooby Doo on Zombie Island movie review

Here's what you need to know; having become bored of solving the same mysteries over and over, the gang have long since gone their separate ways, but with a new monotony setting in as they try to get on with their lives, Daphne and Fred's successful TV series brings Mystery Inc. back together for a nostalgic road trip across America in search of its most frightening ghosts. But when they find themselves in the bayous of Louisiana on the legendary Moonscar Island, home of Louisiana's hottest peppers and a spooky pirate ghost, they learn a hard lesson in being careful what you wish for.
It might come as a surprise to you that growing up, I was really into Scooby Doo, I had videos and DVDs and binge watched Boomerang and its endless reruns of the old cartoons. But as I grew older, I eventually fell out of love with Scooby Doo, with it joining the ranks of Ben 10 and Yu-Gi-Oh as we went our separate ways on the path of life. As time went by though, Scooby Doo found its way back onto the TV thanks to my nephew, and when Lego released a handful of Scooby Doo sets, I picked up their Mystery Machine set, but I never got back into the series, especially with how the series had gone since I was a fan, even considering how meh it already was. But Halloween is upon us once again, and when the song It's Terror Time Again popped up in my YouTube recommendations, it gave me a brilliant idea for the review to kick off the season.

And since it's probably been about fifteen years since I last watched it, watching it again proved to be a very odd experience. On one hand, a lot of the film had faded from my memory, but on the other hand, seeing just how much of the film I did remember play out on the screen was very weird. For some reason Shaggy and Scooby's boss firing them for eating the contraband is something I've always remembered, even if I didn't remember remembering it, if that makes sense. But the cute thing about this film is where it starts, with the gang split and all starting to miss each other, Daphne and Fred have a popular TV series, meanwhile Velma has gone full Ray from Ghostbusters 2 and now runs a middling book store, and Shaggy and Scooby are bouncing from job to job, with us catching up with them just as they're getting fired from airport customs. Before that though, the film's opening scene is a great little taste of old fashioned Scooby Doo, with a sequence of them being chased through a spooky castle by a monster which is obviously revealed to be a fiend in a mask, before reintroducing us to the gang after their split, so don't expect a contrived scene of them breaking up like in the live action film that followed a few years after this one. Yet what does still stand out is the likability of the gang, specifically Shaggy and Scooby, who are obviously the stars of the show thanks to their amazing chemistry and habit of getting into trouble. But from what I remember of the old shows, it's cool how faithful the film is to its characters, while also making some natural changes; Shaggy and Scooby are already a perfect pair, and Velma is solid as the brains of the group.

Fred and Daphne meanwhile are a surprisingly compelling pair of heroes, with Daphne being very business focused thanks to her job in television, while Fred juggles his ego with now being behind the scenes on his and Daphne's adventures. It being Scooby Doo however, you really shouldn't expect any kind of complexity from any of them, these characters don't grow over the course of the film, instead relying pretty much exclusively on their inherent charm which is admittedly strong. Like the older Scooby Doo shows, the film is also populated with a host of side characters that serve as suspects in the mystery, and naturally, they're where things get a bit more whacky. First we have the hosts, Lena and Simone, who own the house and pepper plantation on the island. Simone is considerably less likable than Lena, simply because of how mean she is to Scooby and Shaggy, while Lena is the more inviting of the two, particularly to Fred, using his ego against him in a lot of the film's more crucial moments. Oddly, these two are the most out of place aspect of the film, as later in the film when their backstory is explored, it gets really dark, and in addition to the horror of said backstory, the implications of what they have done are downright terrifying, far more frightening than any Scooby Doo movie has the right to be. Other suspects include Beau, the grouchy gardener who always seems to be up to something, showing up in weird places and digging around the island in secret, figuratively and literally. Then there's Snakebite, who is voiced by Mark Hamill, he's a crazy hunter stalking the bayou in search of a legendary catfish with is hunting pig, Mojo, and he hates tourists, which gives him more than enough of a motive to be the villain, but like most obvious suspects in Scooby Doo, he's a red herring.

This is nothing new to Scooby Doo, or at least what I remember of it; each episode would follow the same formula of a mystery, a monster and a bunch of suspects, but Zombie Island takes this formula in a very different and considerably darker direction. Gone is the contrived plot of a villain with selfish plans using a monster to scare people away, though the film goes out of its way to set this outcome up by establishing that a legendary pirate buried his treasure on the island. In place of the usual reveal is a genuine supernatural event, one built up after a surprisingly compelling series of discoveries and monstrous encounters, and like I've said a few times, it gets dark, like scare your kids dark, all while never losing that Scooby Doo charm. That being said, for a film as short as this one, it's attempt to stretch the formula of a classic Scooby Doo episode into a full length story comes with downsides, chiefly how slow it feels. The film never feels long or slow when Scooby and Shaggy are on screen, and they really do carry the film, which isn't surprising. There is also a point about two thirds of the way into the film where things really get going, but getting to that is a bit of a slog, though since I loved this film as a kid, this is something that I don't think would bother kids watching it because it's Scooby Doo and he's awesome. Something else that a kid probably wouldn't notice or care about is the film's lack of subtlety; rarely leaving anything to the imagination or trusting the audience to figure things out, even to the point of explaining what is clearly presented on the screen, which is just patronising.

And yet despite its frequently patronising storytelling, the film is also lacking in any kind of moral messaging, which isn't a bad thing, partly because that'd be even more patronising and also because a bad moral message can and will a kill a movie, just look at Captain Marvel, I just find it odd that this film explains everything else annoyingly clearly, yet doesn't then tell you to be a good person at the end. It gets even stanger that the film can be so geared to a young audience and then be so scary; now, I don't think it's scary because I'm an adult, but as I said earlier, some of this film's implications are frightening, as are a couple of its scenes. You know that I'm going to talk about Terror Time Again, it's an awesome song that I've listened to every Halloween for the last few years, but the sequence that accompanies it immediately follows the revelation that the film's zombies are real, and these zombies, while tame by Walking Dead standards, certainly aren't by Scooby Doo standards, and the best thing is they're not even the worst thing the film offers. In the finale when everything is revealed, the film's imagery is stepped up considerably, not just in its ghoulish monsters, but in more subtle ways, believe it or not. The twist that the zombies aren't the real danger is a genuinely good one, one that accompanies some seriously twisted and moderately morally ambiguous backstory, oh yes, moral ambiguity in a Scooby Doo movie, again, believe it or not. But it is still a kids film, so it ends on a very upbeat note, albeit with a final, subtly dreadful implication that's obviously just a laugh. The ending, still being a kids film, comes across as very triumphant, with the good guys winning and the bad guys getting what they deserve, which, once again, is a bit intense for a kids film, but that's what I like to see in the spookier brand of kids films, so all's good.

What's the Matter, Cat Got Your Tongue?

Watching Scooby Doo on Zombie Island as an adult went about as well as I was expecting it to; a lot of things about the film struggle, thanks largely to the simple truth that I'm grown up now and can see a lot of the film's faults clearly. It has a habit of explaining itself too much, to the point of feeling patronising, its characters aren't developed in any way, but are kept from becoming forgettable thanks their undeniable charm, and the film's first two thirds can drag on a bit. But on the other hand, Zombie Island has some genuinely intense sequences, some surprisingly scary monsters and Scooby and Shaggy, a pair that I wager could make even the most abysmal instalments of this franchise tolerable to watch. Overall, the film is clearly more for kids but it's not without its charms, and I'd say it's worth a watch.

It Chapter Two movie review

Here's what you need to know; twenty-seven years after their apparent victory over Pennywise the Dancing Clown, a shapeshifting monster that feeds on the fear of the people it kills, the Losers are called back to their unassuming home town of Derry to fulfil the promise they made, to finish It off for good. But it won't be that easy as It knows of their return and intends to make their homecoming as difficult and as terrifying as possible, something It's all too happy to do, to play one final game with it's favourite prey.

I saw this film on it's opening weekend, of course I did, but I still want to do a Halloween special and I have a bunch of posts done that just need to be touched up and posted, so here we are, only a couple of weeks late. It's a bit odd though when you consider that this is the sequel to my favourite film of 2017, a film whose poster I framed and hung in the upstairs hall of the house until February this year, when it was replaced by an Alita: Battle Angel poster that movie's awesome and you can fight me on it. As usual though, being lazy for a bit and letting the dust settle on any given film can have its perks, such as seeing social justice activists lose their shit over this film's handling of homosexuality and homophobia, because that's really weird; a sequel to a film that dealt with sexual abuse, grief and had a kid get his arm ripped off in the first five minutes also dabbles in some dark and mature shit. Sarcasm aside, this film has received some more reasonable criticism, chiefly regarding its pacing and horror, so do I agree with those criticisms or is this a contender for best film of 2019, spoiler alert, maybe and no.

It Chapter Two's opening scene is the one that's attracted the most negative attention from progressives; the scene where a gay couple get the shit kicked out of them and one of them gets thrown off a bridge before getting snatched up and killed by the Clown. This scene is uncomfortable to watch, which I think was the point, but I don't think it's as strong an opening as the first film's opening scene. Think back to that film and Georgie getting killed by Pennywise, it was brutal, it was shocking, it was extreme, it was effective. This scene is certainly effective, you feel bad for the guy and hope that the dickheads get theirs, then Pennywise shows up and you feel even worse for him, but this scene didn't make me any more afraid of Pennywise. The result of Georgie's death was to establish a threat to the characters; kids can and do die, and I know that this scene is trying to set the same precedent for this film; adults can and do die, but that's just not as scary, adults die in horror all the time, and the fact that kids were getting killed and eaten in the first film made that film's Pennywise scarier, even if it's same Clown, just twenty-seven years later. This doesn't take away from the other scenes of Pennywise just doing his thing, which are as creepy and entertaining as ever, but I'm sure you see my point. The film does do a good job of introducing us to the adult losers, in each introduction we get a clear picture of who they are and the lives they've lived; Bill's now an author, Richie's a comedian and Beverly works in fashion.

But on a deeper level, these scenes establish the Losers' flaws; Eddie's married a woman that looks like his mum, Beverly's in an abusive marriage, and Bill struggles with giving his books satisfying conclusions. These feel like genuine continuations of the characters' flaws from the first film, and in addition to the downright creepy resemblances they all have to their kid counterparts, it really makes these characters believable and compelling as the Losers all grown up. It Chapter Two expands on its characters in small but interesting ways. It's interesting to see many of their underlying flaws from the first film haven't gone away, most notably in Eddie and Beverly, who are both in abusive relationships with their respective partners just like they were with their respective parents, or Bill who can't give his stories closure because his story never got the closure he wanted, or Ben who's still lonely and lovesick, despite apparently hitting the gym every day since the late 80's. Meanwhile Mike, the Loser who stayed in Derry to keep watch spent his entire life trying to understand It and find a way to kill It, becoming reclusive and obsessive in the process. And then there's Richie and his dirty little secret, which the film is surprisingly subtle about given how in-your-face they could have been about it, this is 2019 after all. But rather than being shoved in your face, it ends up making the film's finale all the more bittersweet as we learn what his secret is. But what all these characters have in common is their likability, something brilliantly carried over from the first film, and it makes for some very strong comedy, most strongly from Richie, obviously, he is a comedian.

And that's this film's biggest strength; seeing the Losers reuniting and catching up in the first hour and teaming up against Pennywise in the third, roughly, this film's runtime is a daunting two hours and fifty minutes. And when they're all together, joking and laughing with each other or fighting Pennywise side by side, it is awesome. The scene in the Chinese restaurant is really cute and funny, as is the scene of them revisiting their old clubhouse, and there's a real sense of comradery when they descend into It's lair in the film's finale. It feels less like a group of friends in a horror film and more like a band of brothers (and sister) in an epic dual against evil. And that evil is It, of course; the shapeshifting Clown with a nose for fear and a taste for flesh, the younger, the better, and just like in the first film, Pennywise is a fantastic villain. When the film lets him hunt, it's a lot of fun, whether he's luring kids to their doom with a friendly clown act or scaring the shit of them, and whenever he interacts directly with the adult Losers, that's a lot of fun too. But things get a bit bumpier when he's trying to scare them or lure them with his various forms. His routine of luring them into dark, shadowy corner and springing on them with a jumpscare worked fine in the first film, but in this film, like the opening scene of It killing a guy, seeing It jumping out and yelling boo on a bunch of adults really isn't that scary, and whereas these scenes were brief in the first film, and made less tedious by the film's faster and tighter pacing, in the sequel, they make up the middle third of the film as the Losers all go off alone to look for their artefacts.

This segment of the film is a slog, it's repetitive and tedious as each Loser finds their artefact and has a run in with It. In isolation, these scenes aren't that bad, but all of them fit a similar formula and they just keep going on and on. Some of them serve a purpose outside of the artefact, chiefly Richie's dirty little secret and Eddie getting the upper hand on his Leper, so these scenes aren't pointless, they're just boring, and you're watching wanting them to get on with it so they can get back together and fuck that clown up. All the while another old enemy of the Losers is out and about, stalking and planning to kill them and then not actually doing it. It makes sense that he would be secondary to Pennywise, both from a narrative and marketing standpoint, but he reminds me of Azog from The Hobbit, a villain they put in the first act because Smaug wasn't going to show up until the end of the second, the only difference being that each act of The Hobbit is its own almost three hour long film, so it makes a bit more sense there, in here, this guy's just wasted. On the plus side about this middle portion of the film, it gives room to develop the characters a little more, with each one remembering or confronting something about themselves and their past, usually involving a dancing clown. And naturally, it becomes more important in the finale, so whether or not you find this sequence just a bit boring or painful to watch will really depend on how invested you are in this story. And each time I've seen this film, because I've seen it four times now, I tell myself that in the end, it'll be worth it, because it is.

This film's finale is all kinds of awesome, just like the first film, it involves the Losers going to that creepy old house and putting their fears aside to take down the clown. And this final act is a lot of fun; filled with haunted house type scares, many of which calling back to the first film, a bunch of character scenes and a showdown with a giant, Lovecraftian monster, so it's basically everything I wanted from this film. Since I saw this part of the story before in the miniseries, I had a rough idea of where the film was going, but unsurprisingly, this film blows that miniseries out of the water in its execution. And it doesn't just do so in its visuals, which are obviously far better, it brings the story of the Losers to an end, wrapping up any loose ends and cleverly expanding on the first film and in doing so, somehow does what the first film did and actually deliver a conclusive and fulfilling ending. Not that this will matter when It Chapter Three gets announced, something I really hope doesn't happen because this story is concluded, especially given that the first film was lightning in a bottle and even with the same people behind it, the sequel struggles to keep up. While it isn't a perfect film, it is a perfect ending to the story started by the first film, and that is what makes this film so good, even with all of its failings of which it admittedly has a decent number. What we're really learning here is that all it takes to win me over is a giant monster, that and a compelling character drama and a damn cool villain, and in this film's case, that's tick, tick and tick.

You're Just A Clown

It Chapter Two does what it has to do; it wraps up the story started by the first film and ends the stories of these lovable and memorable characters, as well as their evil, immortal tormentor. And when the Losers are together, they shine, and when they're fighting Pennywise, they shine, it's just that bit in between where the film kind of falls apart, becoming repetitive and boring and losing some of that Losers club magic. But like the first film, its finale is something that I don't think will ever get old, and neither will its villain, which is as frightening and awesome as ever. But like the first film, this is a film about seven friends, and that's where this film is at its most powerful. It's not as good as the first, but I wasn't expecting it to be, and even still, it's worth watching.

It (2017) Redux Review (2019)

I've got a lot to catch up on; a bunch of film reviews and that post about The Little Mermaid post I started writing in August. I was going to get it done before my annual escape to Pembrokeshire but you already know my excuse as to why I didn't. That being said, earlier this year in the lead up to Godzilla: King of the Monsters, I revisited an old post of mine; my redux review of Godzilla, and it was a few years ago that I developed a love of a little film called It, the first half of the latest adaptation of one of Stephen King's most famous books. And now that the second half is out, and I totally wasn't planning to get this out before its release, I'm jumping back into the cinema seat of a past me that saw something special in a film about a gang of losers taking on a shapeshifting, child eating Clown. With my updating of the Godzilla Redux, I didn't intend to make too many changes, but ended up basically writing the entire review from scratch, and I've done pretty much the same thing here, but that's part of the fun if you look at it from a more perfectionist point of view.

Here's what you need to know; things are not as they appear in the quiet little town of Derry, beneath the quaint American exterior lies a long and morbid history and an even longer list of dead and missing children. Among the missing is Bill's little brother, Georgie, whose fate Bill tirelessly seeks to uncover, but he's about to realise that he should have just left it alone. Something evil hides beneath Derry, something that defies Bill and his friends' comprehension; a creature that can feed on their fear, one that has re-emerged from its slumber and is ready for another feeding. But it isn't invulnerable and the Losers Club do not intend to go down without a fight, vowing to put a stop to the killings and take Pennywise the Dancing Clown down for good.

It is infamous for its opening scene in which Georgie meets Pennywise, but one of my most vivid memories of seeing this film in the cinema is the shock me and my mates felt in this scene, because holy shit is it brutal. This scene's function in the film is very simple; it sets up Bill's conflict and introduces us to Pennywise, and it does both of those jobs very well. On a deeper level however, this scene has a much more psychological effect, establishing It to a film that doesn't fuck around by tearing apart our comforting preconceptions of horror. In the film's opening we meet Georgie, a harmless, innocent kid who's scared of going into the basement and sees a scary monster in the light reflecting off a pair of bulbs. But of course, the scary monster is just some bulbs, so there's nothing for Georgie to fear, he's safe. You would never expect him to be first victim because most horror films wouldn't have the balls to hurt such a good kid, then in swoops It with a scene that's dripping in dread and apprehension, almost as much as the drool dripping from Pennywise's mouth. It's a scene with an inevitable outcome, you're watching it in constant anticipation for the moment something snaps, all the while the dread builds and builds. The scene doesn't compromise the false sense of security around Georgie however, with Pennywise even changing his eye colour to blue to further lull Georgie, all while making him laugh and offering him a balloon. And then it happens, Pennywise grabs Georgie and rips his arm off with his teeth.

In this instance a very simple and clear message is conveyed; no one is safe, not even sweet, innocent little Georgie can get away from this threat, and the film shows it to you in all its glory, foregoing any effort to obscure the image of Georgie dragging himself across the road with blood pouring from his missing arm. And even though Georgie manages to get out of arm's reach of Pennywise, it doesn't matter because Pennywise grabs him anyway and drags him away into Derry's sewer system, because there is no getting away from Pennywise, it's a simple visual but it gets the point across. But the reason the film doesn't try to hide the brutality is simple, it's to shock you and to get it to stick in your mind, that way if Pennywise gets his hands on one of our heroes later in the film, it's not so clear if they're getting out of it or not, this scene plants that doubt in your head that these kids can die, rather violently too, which escalates the tension of several of the film's later scenes considerably. And Georgie's last word, "Billie," is to reinforce the guilt that Bill feels over Georgie's death by telling us how much Georgie trusted and relied upon his big brother, like many things in this film, it's kind of twisted. Speaking of twisted, the very next scene gives us a close up of a sheep getting shot with a bolt gun, just in case seeing a kid getting his arm ripped off wasn't gruesome enough for you. But there's something a bit more important to take away from this scene apart from the bolt gun itself, and that's the lecture Mike gets from his grandad.

This scene gives us a speech that's presented to us as if it's important, and though it might not seem that important, I think it is. Here's the speech; "there are two places you can be in this world, you can be out here like us," referring to the people "or you can be in there like them," referring to the sheep. "You waste time hemming and hawing and someone else is gonna make that choice for you, except you won't know it until you feel that bolt between your eyes." if you've already seen the film, you know this is foreshadowing for Mike's encounter with Henry towards the end of the film, but it's the speech's allusion to the sheep that I find interesting. It's effectively offering Mike a choice; he can be sheep, a mindless animal in a slaughterhouse, or he can a man in charge of his own fate, and in the context of a town that's the hunting ground of an immortal, shapeshifting apex predator, this little speech takes on a whole different meaning. Mike is given the choice to be passive like the rest of the town or to act, which is the option he takes of course, while the rest of the town stays blissfully ignorant as their kids are constantly disappearing, he takes that bolt gun he's afraid to use and goes to fight back. And to further emphasise this point, the film cuts from the sheep being released from their pen to kids being let out of school, an obvious parallel, and a comedically dark one at that. 

Like kids tend to do, the various members of the Losers club are scared of stuff, and some of them, mainly Stan, Ben and Richie, have very simple, childish fears. Richie is scared of clowns, Ben is scared by his findings while digging into the town's history, and Stan is scared of his dad's very creepy Modigiliani-esque painting. These may seem childish to us but that's entirely the point, they are childish fears because these are kids, and we all had these silly fears when we were younger, I for example was scared of the dark, still not a big fan of it to be honest, and that easily explains why the Doctor Who episode Silence in the Library scared me so much as a kid. As for the rest of the Losers club, their fears are a bit more complicated, each stemming from a trauma in their lives; Bill for example is scared of accepting that Georgie is dead, Eddie is scared of germs, a result of his mum's borderline oppressive sheltering of him, Mike is scared by his parents' death in a fire, and Beverly is scared of her sexually abusive dad, and these fears are brilliantly explored through the kids' encounters with Pennywise. Each kid must learn to overcome their fear throughout the film, whether it's something silly like a creepy painting or something massively fucked up like their sexually abusive dad. But before we jump the gun and go to the scary scenes, a friend of mine made an observation one time while we were watching the film and I don't think it's coincidental. All of the kids' parents that we see are arseholes. Bill's dad snaps at him for his refusal to accept Georgie's death, Eddie's mum is over-protective, Beverly's dad is a depraved creep.

This isn't accidental, it's to make the kids vulnerable; in making the parents arseholes, it takes away the safety net that parents are supposed to provide, leaving the kids with no one to turn to but each other and forcing them to take control of their own fates and fight for themselves, rather than joining the rest of the sheep in the slaughterhouse. A recurring concept in the film is control and agency, which is obvious in the case of Beverly, but still very present in other characters like Bill, Eddie and Mike. But it's obvious in Beverly as soon as she gets home after helping the Losers steal supplies from the pharmacy. Her dad's presence in this scene is unsettling, as is Beverly's completely submissive nature around him. The film's heavy implication of their abusive relationship is probably the darkest this film gets, and it makes the bathroom scene later in the film one of my favourite scenes, but we'll get to that. Less skin-crawly is things like Eddie not being able to leave the house without kissing his mum, which, like Beverly and her dad, implies a lack of agency and control, though obviously to a smaller and less perverted degree. Then the Losers club go to the quarry and the tone completely shifts; whereas the previous scene gave us Beverly alone, scared and angry, this scene gives us a bunch of kids having fun in a quarry, a pleasant, well lit, colourful quarry. In contrast to the previous scene, where she was scared and weak, Beverly now joins the losers in their underwear and throws herself into the quarry without a care in the world. The film doesn't return to the quarry, which is odd because it's clearly set up as a place of safety for the Losers club, but the function of this scene is to enforce the group's friendship, which naturally becomes important in their fight against Pennywise.

Also important is the turtle, which a recurring motif throughout the film, it's a reference to Maturin, a turtle god from Stephen King's books and an enemy of Pennywise, which this film uses as a signifier of safety. Ok, now let's talk scares, because each kid in this film has their moment of being terrified by Pennywise and while the pattern is usually the same, the scares themselves can be pretty creative. Mike for example gets a door being pounded on by charred hands as smoke billows out from behind the door, this is actually one of the film's more subtle scares and obviously plays on Mike's fear of the fire that killed his parents. Others are less subtle; Stan gets scared by a manifestation of his dad's creepy painting, Eddie gets chased down by a Leper, and Ben has a run in with a headless boy that he saw in a history book, but then there are the things that Pennywise shows to Beverly and Bill, which are the standouts. Let's start with Bill, who is lured into Georgie's room and finds a lego turtle, before dropping and breaking it when he sees Georgie run down into the basement. Remember the turtle from the quarry and how it was used to make the quarry safe, in this scene, the turtle being in Georgie's room implies that Georgie's room has become a sort of refuge for Bill, one that is broken by the breaking of the turtle, before he goes into the basement and sees the thing he is most afraid of. In the basement, he finds Georgie chanting "you'll float too" while his face rots and decays, the implication being that Bill can't accept that Georgie is dead, hence It showing him his brother as a rotting corpse.

And not just a corpse, but a corpse being controlled by Pennywise, literally controlled like a puppet, which calls back to the film's themes of control and agency, as well as somewhat blatantly suggesting that It is a puppeteer, as in the apathy and malaise of Derry is the fault of It and that his influence is even more insidious than scaring kids. Beverly's scare is easily the most graphic in the film, which is an accomplishment when you think about it. Earlier in the film, Beverly furiously cuts her hair in the mirror, with the prior scene establishing her Dad's abusive tendencies and his particular liking of her hair. Also earlier in the film we see her in the pharmacy looking at Tampax and on returning home and reluctantly showing her dad the Tampax, he asks "are you still my little girl." All of these factors play into what Beverly sees in the bathroom, first with the hair coming alive and pinning her to the sink; a manifestation of her fear of her dad and his constricting effect on her life, then with the sink erupting in blood, drenching her and covering every inch of the room. And it is a cartoonish amount of blood too, makes the same scene from the miniseries look like a booboo. With everything the film has previously established about Beverly, the implication of the blood is obvious and absolutely disgusting, but more crucially, it plays on Beverly's fear of the lack of agency in her life and her looming sexual maturity. In a sharp contrast to the extreme nature of this scene and its obvious implications, we then get the Losers working together to clean the blood away, the implication being the strength that Beverly and the rest of the Losers find in each other, an ability to work together and overcome what they're afraid of, which obviously becomes crucial in the finale.

Another thing that becomes crucial in the finale is the scene where they win a rock fight with Bowers and his boys. In addition to it being Mike's induction into the Losers club, it's a scene that demonstrates their strength; as individuals, Bowers is an insurmountable threat, but together, they can beat him, which draws a parallel between Bowers and Pennywise who, like Bowers, is reduced to nothing more than a bully. And like Bowers used to be, Pennywise seems insurmountable in the scene where he comes out of the wall at them, just by how physically massive he is and by his ability to bend reality around the losers. This is clearly a show of might; It knows that they've found where it lives and jumps out of the wall at them as a warning not to get involved, but far from being intimidated, Bill sets out to attack It where it lives, with the Losers reluctantly giving chase. I've also always thought that the way Derry's sewer network is arranged on the map was deliberate too; with the tunnels branching out underneath the town like a spider's limbs with the wellhouse, It's lair at its centre. Depicting Derry as the limbs or possibly the web with Pennywise's lair at the centre would make sense in the context of Derry being It's hunting ground, and the Losers being It's prey. Continuing the film's themes of agency and control, the rhyme that Bill repeats throughout the film, "He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts," comes from a novel called Donovan's Brain. This is interesting because in that novel, that rhyme is used to resist the subliminal coercion of the titular brain, how coincidental then that he'd be repeating that phrase, given that the town of Derry is repeatedly suggested to be in a state of apathy and ignorance, like the layout of the sewers and Pennywise puppeteering Georgie, it's as if the film is suggesting that Pennywise has control over the town itself, which amplifies the Losers' lack of outside support, they fight together or die alone and Derry isn't going to care either way.

The Losers' assault on Neibolt goes about as well as you'd think; with Richie's nerve breaking only seconds after they enter the house, and It eventually managing to separate them and nearly kill Eddie. This is another one of my favourite scenes in the film for the obvious reason; the Losers go in with every intention to fight Pennywise and end up fleeing the house in terror after Pennywise kicks their arses. This scene plays out like horror movie 101, with them hearing a funny noise and slowly walking towards it before the scare happens, but at least they're not adults who should know better, and for a villain's who's game is to scare the shit out them before he kills them, turning the house into a haunted house attraction makes a lot of sense. That and the scene where Pennywise crawls out of the fridge and tries to eat Eddie is just amazing; the way he flips from goofy clown to sadistic monster, and his taunting of Bill before lunging at them, this is one of the film's most intense sequences and I love it. But before he can kill any of them, the rest of the Losers show up and Beverly stabs him in the face, forcing him to retreat. As Beverly says in the next scene, they were able to hurt it because they were together, but that's all they could do because even as a group, they were still afraid, which gave Pennywise a chance to escape. As Beverly also says in the next scene, Pennywise wants to divide them for the precise reason that they were able to hurt it as a group, because they're weak on their own, but even if they give each other strength against Pennywise, there's no guarantee that Pennywise won't fuck them up again the next time, despite Bill's optimism, and the Losers ultimately fracture out of fear.

The film picks back up a while later, with the Losers club still split from the assault on Neibolt. And we are treated to a scene where Henry is shown to be a "paper man." Earlier in the film, one of his gang, Patrick, is mauled by Pennywise after a run in with his greatest fear; a pack of zombies, which is a fear in the vain of Stan's fear of a painting or Richie's fear of clowns, it's easy. Henry meanwhile is the big bad of the school, so it's interesting to find that his greatest fear is his dad, who he cowers before after being caught playing with his gun, and is powerless to stop as he humiliates him in front of his gang. Similar to Beverly's fear of her dad, this is a bit less simple than a painting or a zombie, but unlike Beverly, Henry has allowed his fear of his dad to turn him into a violent bully, someone who seeks to humiliate and overpower others because at home, he's the one with no power. But for some reason, rather than killing him, Pennywise effectively recruits him by giving him back his knife and having him kill his dad in an incredibly bloody scene, before tasking him with "[killing] them all." To be honest, I don't know why Pennywise does this, but I can hazard a guess. The Losers, or at least Bill and Richie, are able to resist It's attempts to scare them, and they were all able to hurt it, but while Pennywise's smoke and mirrors is just that; smoke and mirrors that are only dangerous if you believe them to be, a man with a knife is not smoke and mirrors, and with this happening just before It takes Beverly, one would assume that Beverly was bait and the plan was for Henry to finish them off. This gives credence to Bill later saying that Pennywise is scared of them, because it sees them as a threat.

Oh yeah, It takes Beverly, snatches her from her home after she smacks her dad in the head with the top of the toilet in what my brother, who's a big fan of horror, don't you know, says is the only scary scene in the film. It's not scary because of Beverly's dad trying to rape her though, no, it's the bit where she turns around and Pennywise is right behind her, because my brother is an absolute normie when it comes to horror, though to his credit, he thought last years' Halloween sucked and so did I, I digress. This scene does parallel the previous scene however; albeit that Henry stabbed his dad in the neck, all Beverly did was give him a really, really bad headache. But what both of these scenes have in common is obvious, two of the film's characters overcoming what they're afraid of, only in different ways; Henry solves his problem with murder, Beverly solves her problem by standing up to him, which escalates into him getting grabby grabby, her then kicking him in the face, him then kicking in the bathroom door, and her smashing the lid of the toilet tank on his face. In addition to being very satisfying to watch, I mean, that hit was brutal, it reduces her dad who was previously a domineering, oppressive presence to a weak, powerless, wounded man. And while Pennywise might be the scariest thing in the world to Eddie or Richie or Stan, it probably isn't to Beverly, and in taking that power over her away from her dad, she's effectively taken Pennywise's power over her away too. To a lesser extent, we also see this in Eddie as he escapes from his mother to save Beverly, standing up to her just as Beverly did to her dad.  

This transitions us into the film's climax as the Losers come back together to save Beverly from It, after dealing with Henry with surprising ease, of course. I've kept the sequel out of this redux up until this point, but it's worth saying that after Henry turns bad(er) in this film, he only shows up once more, trying and failing to kill Mike, who then pushes him down the well. I'd hoped that Henry would return for the sequel, and he does, but they completely waste him in the sequel, and it makes me realise just how much they waste him in this film too. For a fearsome enemy of the heroes, a school bully turned blood-thirsty killer, he goes out really quickly in this film, so quickly in fact that he contributes nothing to the film's finale outside of Mike losing the ammo for the bolt gun, maybe, at a push. Looking at both films, I do think that Henry could have been handled better, maybe downplayed in this film and given a more important role in the sequel, as an alternative to him just being around and not really doing anything. That doesn't really matter though because now it's the Losers vs. Pennywise, it's the moment we've all been waiting for. With Beverly having physically overpowered her fear, it's now time for Bill to confront and overcome his fear, and Ben brings Beverly back from seeing the Deadlights by kissing her, which is cute, January Embers and all that. But that's somewhat insignificant in the shadow of Bill saying goodbye to Georgie. And not only does he say goodbye to him, he shoots him in the head with the bolt gun, overcoming both Pennywise's efforts to ensnare him and his own fear of accepting Georgie's death, because what better way to resolve the unresolved death of a loved one than to finish them off personally.

What follows is a brief confrontation where Pennywise easily overpowers the Losers and is able to take Bill, who tells them all to leave after Pennywise gives them the choice, which is a testament to Bill's character, being prepared to die to save his friends. But the Losers refuse Pennywise's offer, instead opting to stick together and beat the ever-loving piss out of him, and they really go to town on him, with baseball bats and pipes and chains, all while he's still trying and failing to scare them by assuming different forms on the fly. But they're not afraid anymore, even as Pennywise targets them individually with the things they fear most, and with the fear gone, Pennywise's power is gone, and the Losers subdue him with ease in one of most satisfying beatdowns in film history. With all of his strength robbed from him, he is reduced to nothing more than what he is, a bully. Here lies one of this film's greatest strengths too, its conclusion is actually conclusive; despite knowingly being the first half of the story, it remains a self-contained story with a satisfying conclusion, as Pennywise retreats back into hibernation and the Losers make their oath to come back in twenty-seven years and kill it for good if it comes back. Even without It Chapter Two to finish the story, It can be watched and enjoyed as a stand-alone film, a story of seven losers teaming up to fight back against a bully, a bully that also happens to be a shapeshifting, child eating monster.

Yet despite giving its characters and their story a satisfying and definitive conclusion, the film never answers the question of what It is, which you might think is an issue, but it really isn't. By the end of the film, we know what we need to know; It's a monster that been around for a long time and comes out every twenty-seven years to eat people, it hunts by taking on the form of what they most fear, and we know that it also likes to play with its food. But we also know that seven losers can beat it, and ultimately, It isn't a film about a monster, it's about those seven losers who find strength in each other, a strength they need and ultimately use to take on a monster, one that lends itself to some intense scenes of horror, but at its heart, It is a character movie about the Losers club, and as brilliant as Pennywise the Dancing Clown is as a villain, his downfall at the hands of seven plucky kids is what makes this film so memorable and lovable. And while I was doing what I did with my Godzilla redux from earlier in the year and basically writing this review from scratch, I was contemplating just where I stand on this film two years after the fact. I called this film a must watch two years ago, but my opinions on movies can change, and I briefly thought that my opinion on this one had changed too. But no, at the end of the day, I'm still smiling when I watch this film, it's still the warming film about friendship with an awesome villain that it was two years ago, and though I've seen this film some eight or nine times now, I could still watch it again.

Time to Float

So yeah, I still love It, even after two years and a sequel, this is still a fantastic film, one that will be remembered for its amazing villain in Pennywise the Dancing Clown, but I'd say more so for its lovable characters and heart-warming story of friendship and conquering evil, and who would have thought that a film about a child-murdering clown monster could ever be described as heart-warming, but here we, and I once again have to say that It is a must watch; there aren't many horror films like it as it is more so a drama than horror. It's a film that invests you in its characters and story and then throws them up against an evil monster, making for some genuinely intense scenes of horror, but more so, an intense satisfaction in seeing them ultimately win against a supernatural killer, the fact that pennywise is so good is icing on the cake more than anything else. It hasn't lost its magic for me, this is still a lighting in a bottle film, and it's still an absolute must watch.