The Schlocktoberfest – Day 8: It Chapter One

SchlocktoberfestXII

It Chapter One (2017)

I guess I’m gonna have to review the old one now.

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: It. Stupid.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

A movie about children being killed almost always has to start with a creepy rendition of a lullaby.
It worked in the book and in the 90’s series since it was in the 60’s – but I don’t think any kids played with paper boats in the summer of ’88.
It’s October 1988! After Georgie gets done playing with his paper boat, whaddya say we hit the Arcadian Twin and catch Halloween 4? Michael Myers has been rumored to return in it.
It’s already dark and thunder-storm-y, I would have told Mom in the parlor there to take a break from the piano playing while I descended in to the cellar.
Jump scare #1!
Posters for Gremlins, Beetlejuice, and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Bill Denbrough rules.
That was a crane shot worthy of Johnny LaRue. I doubt no one outside of Gen X or Boomers will get that reference.
Horror Trope 101 – Last words to someone, “Be careful.”
The paper boat in the street scene is almost identical to the 1990 version.
When Georgie headers into that sawhorse, everyone shouted, “Fuck!”
Horror Trope 102 – Before you actually get killed, you loudly exclaim that someone is gonna kill you for screwing something up.
I can honestly say that the famous Georgie/Pennywise sewer scene can be declared a tie between Curry and Skarsgård. They were both incredible.
OK, right when Pennywise stops laughing and his face relaxes into that blank stare, fuck the boat and hightail it home son.
Didn’t get to see that bitten off arm in 1990.
We come out of the scary sewer into June of 1989. The summer of the Bat is back!
Steve Williams working in an abattoir. Makes sense.
I wonder how sick Finn Wolfhard is of the 1980’s by now. It made him a star and a shit ton of moolah – but still.
It was refreshing to see a last day of school scene done to The Cult instead of the go-to Alice Cooper.
No door to the girl’s bathroom?
Fucking girl bullies, christ they’re vicious.
I remember that unbridled joy of dumping all of my notebooks and schoolwork into the giant garbage cans they set up in the hallways on the last day.
Bower’s crew went from 50’s greasers to mullets and Anthrax “Among The Living” t-shirts. I guess that’s a pretty good adjustment for culture and time.
I had a friend in ’89 who had a Camaro the same color and year as Belch’s Trans-Am. I know you don’t care.
I hadn’t thought of or said out loud, “New Kids on the Block” for 28 years until I saw this movie.
Parents tend to pretty much suck in Stephen King novels.
The scene with Mike riding through town should have been done to Dream Academy’s “Life in a Northern Town.” Just sayin’.
Apparently in Derry, dirty side alleys can still have historic murals on the walls.
Studying the Torah looks really fucking hard to do.
Little touches like tilting the camera as Stan straightens out the creepy-as-fuck-all painting, make a killer horror movie.
Were those Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies in Eddie’s cupboard? Dude, I used to live on those.
Nah, Eddie’s mom isn’t at all disturbing.
It just wouldn’t be a Stephen King story without a child’s decapitated head stuck in a tree.
Rotten old people ignoring Ben’s screams for help as they drive by made me sick. I hope their shitty Pontiac goes right into a fucking telephone pole.
Ben didn’t get Henry’s “H” carved into his stomach in the 1990 version. It was a made-for-TV mini series don’t forget.
I have known some weird motherfuckers in my day, but nothing like a Stephen King bully.
Hockstetter’s weapon of choice is a lighter and some spray glue? OK, an A for originality I guess should be awarded.
Pennywise eats the good and the bad kids of Derry so, you know, equality and indiscriminate and all that.
That aforementioned mural on the wall in the alley looks like the cover to Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits album. That’s 2 references already for the Godfather of Shock Rock.
Mother-of-all-that-is-fuck that is the creepiest kid-toucher of a Pharmacist ever filmed.
Batman and Lethal Weapon 2 in theaters now! The summer of ’89 was a great film summer.
Is everyone in Beverly’s life some sort of molester? Humanity is such shit.
Jesus boys, ever hear of swimming trunks? Tighty whiteys does not an appropriate bathing garment make. Ugh.
Along with the New Kids, that is also the first time I have heard “Bust A Move” since 1989.
That shot of the NKOTB (lingo!) poster on Ben’s bedroom door was the best acting Donnie Wahlberg has ever done.
Neibolt Street. Oh shit, if you’ve read the book you know what’s coming.
Could the set designer make 29 Neibolt Street look any more like 1313 Mockingbird Lane?
A leper in Maine in the 20th Century? No, this is a temperate zone.
I had that exact same keyboard that Beverly has. You’re welcome.
A bathroom sink that goes 24 feet straight down. (Using the not-at-all-overdone Senfeld-inflection) What is the deal with New England plumbing?
Beverly’s cut off hair coming back to attack her looks like it could be either Venom or Carnage.
Menstrual allegory is dialed to 11 in this scene, and makes Carrie’s prom look like a paper cut.
The awesome scene with Bill, Georgie, and Pennywise was pretty much ruined with the trailer.
Even if it’s 100 gallons of blood, whenever you’re cleaning a house in the 1980’s your montage cannot be done to The Cure, but to Bone Symphony!
There is nothing like a good old fashioned rock war. Am I right or wrong here? It puts hair on your chest you pussy Gen Z’rs.
Belch is now rocking the classic “Metal Up Your Ass” Metallica shirt. In my neighborhood, we had to own that and Ozzy’s Randy Rhodes “Tribute” shirt. Ah memories, sweetened through the ages just like wine…
Long before Eddie Munson, the rock war should have been done to “Master of Puppets” instead of “Antisocial.”
When The Losers had Bowers beaten and alone on the ground, I was the only one who gave the Mortal Kombat yell of, “Finish him!”
There’s a missing child poster in town for a kid named Edward Corcoran. Does that mean the Summertime Blues has taken him? No. Wait. That Eddie Cochran. Skip it.
Fuck the town parade! Go see Batman! Like I did. 15 times that Summer. Yay me.
The clown that an obvious Bill Skarsgård is playing on the stage is 100 times scarier than Pennywise.
Pennywise in the kids’ slideshow scene is the greatest scene in the movie.
Eddie’s “Airwolf” shirt rules.
Pennywise looked almost Curry-esque when he popped outta that wall.
Bill had his Independence Day speech on the steps of 29 Neibolt there.
Ritchie’s Freese’s Department store shirt is a nice shout out to King’s hometown of Bangor.
A room full of clown dolls, Hollywood Horror Night’s next event for coulrophobiacs.
This clown room scene reminds me of Tourist Trap.
Pennywise with the super-hero landing!
Eddie’s broken arm = cringeworthy moment.
Pennywise does a Mummenschanz out of an old freezer. Again, not a joke for those under 30.
Christ, Pennywise drools like a cast member of “My 600 Pound Life” heading for Kraft Service.
Nice little shout out to the Wolfman from the book and 1990 series.
“Look at this motherfucker! He’s leaking Hamburger Helper!” – line of the year.
Whenever there’s infighting, it’s always what the bad guys want.
This second 80’s montage is also not scored to my liking, to show how badly broken the Losers club was in August of ’89 – I would have used Every Rose Has Its Thorn. I do not want that stuck in my head for the next 72 hours so I won’t be posting the link to that one.
Another over-done trope is how the meanest and cruelest bully is the one really getting bullied at home by a piece of shit father.
It’s too bad that this fringe-wearing bitch didn’t get eaten by Pennywise, what an absolute cunt.
All it took was a nicely wrapped gift of his missing knife, then plunged into the neck of the shitty dad, then Bob’s your uncle – Henry is a Pennywise acolyte.
Nothing like a toilet lid to the cranium of another shit dad, in this case Beverly’s. Oh shit, Pennywise then nabs her. Fuck.
“You die if you try!” How was this not used as a slogan for the constant anti-drug crusade of the late 80’s?
Since it’s now August of 1989, the town theater is showing A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child. When I said that the summer of 1989 was great for film, there were obviously some stinkers in there.
In those Coke bottle glasses, Wolfhard looks like Bubbles from The Trailer Park Boys
Eddie’s Munchausen by proxy house is scarier than 29 Neibolt Street.

It was Pennywise who unearthed Eddie’s deepest fear of the old Vestron Video logo.
There needed to be little more to the Losers getting back together in my opinion. It should have mirrored adult Mike calling them all back home.
Nothing like an industrial strength knotted rope attached to a sturdy pulley mechanism to allow everyone to descend into the sewer. Deus ex machina? I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Finally, for the first time since 1986 when the novel was written and the series in 1990 – we get to see what the fuck Pennywise means by, “We all float down here.”
If only Kiss’ Psycho Circus was this psycho.
No one should ever say, “You will be” except Master Yoda.
It’s very odd that in a 1990 mini series on ABC, Bowers can call mike the N-word, but he can’t in an R rated film in 2017.
I really hate that skinny bitch from the painting Stan doesn’t like.
In that rain slicker, Georgie is looking more and more like Willis in “Unbreakable.”
Atta boy Ben, give Bev the Prince Charming. Works every time.
The scene where Bill finally accepts that Georgie is dead is fucking heart-wrenching.
Pennywise is throwing these kids around like rag dolls, and not one of them suffers a spinal.
Skarsgård should have at least gotten an Oscar nod. Clowns were in for a little while. Ledger deserved his, Phoenix didn’t, so they could have thrown this kid a frickin’ bone.
“Now I’m gonna have to kill this fucking clown” should have been the rhetoric for Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
Watching the kids beat the ere-loving shit out of Pennywise is truly satisfying.
And with a Louganis down a well, we’ll se ya in another 27 years Pennywise. Hasta luego you creepy clown-faced cocksuckah.
I would have liked Eddie to say to Ritchie, “I used to hate the sewer.” Then have Ritchie say, “Huh, I can’t imagine why.”
Beverly had a vision of the losers grown up and together again, a nice way to save some dough on announcing the sequel I think.
The Losers cement the eventuality of Chapter 2 by cutting their palms and holding hands.
All jokes aside, It Chapter 1 had one of the most beautiful endings I’ve seen in horror in a long time.

Final Thoughts: This is a typical epic Stephen King novel, so it should have been 8 hours long on Netflix. The Duffer Brothers are apparently gonna do The Talisman, and that page count is equal to It – so I trust that’ll be a Netflix series. Anyhoo, this is one of my favorite SK novels so I was happy with chapter one, and we’ll have to wait and see what happens with Chapter 2.

Score: 8 Lepers on Neibolt Street (out of 10)

Was it Entertaining?:

Which was Better?: For purists, it will always be the 1990 series for them, and the new regime of horror fans will side with the 2017 film. Me? I find them almost even with a slight tilt in favor toward the 1990 version, but you saw that coming didn’t you?