Tag: stephen king

It Chapter 2 Film Review

Directed by  Andy Muschietti

Starring: Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader

Rated R for disturbing violent content and bloody images throughout, pervasive language, and some crude sexual material

Two years after the original “It” film was released, we finally get the second half of Stephen King’s novel. “It” is terrifying, suspenseful, and funny in all the right ways, but with flaws within the film. “It Chapter 2” is the sequel of “It”, both based of the novel, the novel being divided into two parts. In “It Chapter 2”, the “Losers Club”, reunite 27 years later after the events of the first film, to defeat Pennywise, a human eating clown, once again.

The selling point of “It Chapter 2” is the Losers Club all grown up and shown as adults, in particular Bill Hader and Isaiah Mustafa. Both actors portray two totally different characters who fear Pennywise and are set to defeat him. Hader plays Richie, a stand up comic who uses comedy throughout the film to ease the tension and fear of Pennywise. Hader is funny when he needs to and very emotional as well. The final scenes of Hader being emotional is sold so well that it takes you out of the film and makes you believe the emotions coming out of Hader. Mustafa, on the other hand, plays Mike, a character who is set and obsessed with Pennywise. Mustafa plays Mike as a bit crazy who can’t seem to let go of the past, while all his former friends have seem to let go of the past and moved on with their lives. Both Hader and Mustafa are the highlights in the cast, in my opinion. Not to say that the other adults are good but these two stand out from the cast.

“It Chapter 2” shows how all horror films should be done. The film does not rely on cheap jump scare, but instead it builds upon suspense. For instance, the Chinese restaurant was not only a heartwarming scene but terrifying and suspenseful. The reason why this scene is sold so well is because all the characters get ominous fortunate cookies, therefore foreshadowing something dark yet to come. There are many scenes such as these, where the tension is built only for the horror elements to be revealed.

Many critics have pointed out the excessive run time of the film, as the film is over two and a half hours. There is nothing wrong when a film has an excessive run time, but those films have each scene feel important and relevant. The problem that “It 2” has is that there are many scenes that either run too long or feel irrelevant. In the film, it is revealed that Bowers, the bully from the first film, was place in a mental institution only for for him to break out with a dead corpse. Bowers is set to kill the Losers Club but this side plot is just wasted. For starters, this is shown in the beginning of the film and feels forgotten after it is shown. Once this plot point is shown again, it feels tacked on, as if the director almost forgot about this side plot. With this film being very long, it would have helped to cut this plot point. It may have been included in the original Stephen King but when a book is translated to a film, many plot points have to be cut out.

Towards the second act of the film, the Losers Club separate and find their own version of It. This part of the film feels dragged out and certainly feels long. We see the majority of the characters enter an old building only for something to terrorize the characters. It is understood that “It” was formerly a book and these scenes may have been in the book. But screenwriters do have to understand that not everything that is included in the book has to be on the big screen. If these scenes needed to be shown, then it would have been best that only one character being terrorize and remembering the past, not multiple characters.

I certainly had much enjoyment with “It Chapter 2”, it certainly has many scares that actually got me jumping out of my seat. Pennywise is a horrifying clown that proves why people should be afraid of clowns. “It Chapter 2” is not only frightening, but it is heartwarming and hilarious due to in part of the characters and the actors portraying them. If only the film had more scenes left on the cutting room floor, “It Chapter 2” would have been the perfect sequel to the original “It”.

3/4

Pet Sematary Film Review

Directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer

Starring: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow

Rated R for horror violence, bloody images, and some language

Pet Sematary is a remake of the 1989 film of the same name, which in turn is an adaptation of the novel written by Stephen King. In this horror film, we are introduced to the Creed family who are new to a small town in Maine (of course) and freaky and odd phenomenons start to occur when the family discovers a pet “sematary” near their home. One day the family cat, dies and with the help of their neighbor Jud, (John Lithgow) the cat is brought back to life which opens up Pandora’s box.

Pet Sematary seems to follow many of the tropes that we have to come known in horror films. The family moving to a new home that seems a nice place to get away from the city. Then on the first night things start to get freaky and odd without any explanations. The mother who sees this as trouble is wanting to go home but the father is insiting the family stays. In addition to those, we get the false jump scares, for example someone or something jumps out of no where as a wink to the audience to say “hey, we are still a horror film”. It seems very repetitive and when watching this film you can tell what would come next. This is something I have an issue with most horror films, not just Pet Sematary. Now I do understand that this film is an adaptation of the 1983 novel and maybe the novel has all of these tropes that I just described. But when making the leap from the pages to screen, something has to change and I feel that this could have been changed.

The biggest crime that Pet Sematary commits is that is just too boring. It takes a good thirty minutes before the plot starts to move along. There were many instances where I was checking my watch just because of the pure boredom that was presented on the screen. I am not asking for jump scares or action for every scene, but something interesting such as character development could be nice. Although I can give props that Louis (Jason Clarke) was not a believer of an afterlife or second chances but in the end he changes his mind. That is an interesting idea that does work in the type of situation he is in.

The film also fails to explain many of the ideas presented. Louis is a doctor who loses a patient and is haunted by that patient. It is never explained why that was happening. Was it a hallucination or was it actually a “zombie”? But Louis’ child sees the deceased patient, so that raises more questions than answers. It also doesn’t add much to the plot. Directors Kolsch and Widmyer could have cut this story arc and it would not have made the film better or worse.

But a horror film’s most important job is to scare the audience. Does it do that? Well, yes but the scares are filled in a boring film with tropes that we have seen before. If you are a Stephen King fan, I suppose you can watch it just to see how this differs from the book and the 1989 film, but I highly recommend to give it a pass. This is something that should not have been brought back to life.

2/4