It : Chapter Two

Picking up the story 27 years on from the previous film, we now see the members of the Losers Club as adults, each with apparently successful lives on the surface, except for Mike who stayed behind in Derry as a humble librarian. However, it quickly becomes clear that the memories of It are not buried far beneath the surface and they will have to do battle once more.

Picking up on my thoughts about the first chapter, this is one of Stephen Kings more complex novels, and genuinely scary to read. However, the film adaptation suffers from being over literal in the use of CGI and putting the monsters in full view diminishes their effect. One scene in particular struck me as an example of this - one character is revisiting her childhood home, now inhabited by an apparently sweet little old lady. As she digs into the past we catch disturbing glances of the old lady in the background, moving in ways that are just … wrong.

However, the building tension of the scene is shattered by the hilarious appearance from a darkened kitchen of what can only be described as a ten foot tall zombie gollum creature with pendulous breasts lurching around the apartment, smashing up the furniture. Similarly, the final encounter with the It creature feels like a video game boss battle where you have to run around a central arena looking for a hiding place.

The final act also goes on much too long. There is a running joke about the character of Ben, a successful author, being unable to write a good ending, and Stephen King himself makes a cameo appearance as a junk shop owner to acknowledge the point.

Overall, it was OK, but I think that I have got to stop expecting adaptations of King’s works to be anything other than workmanlike.