It Chapter Two begins with a horrific dose of real-world hatred. For a scene that closes with a killer clown taking a sizable bite out of a man’s flesh, it’s the violent bigotry on display in the minutes prior that truly makes this opening so disturbing - not only because of the brutal manner in which that bigotry is carried out, but because it’s an act that mirrors our world today.
Acceptance of different sexualities has never been as prominent within society as it is now, but for every vacated closet, there’s a bigot ready to inhabit it. In many ways, the cycle is reversing itself. Closets are now reserved for the vile, hate-filled bastards who can’t stand to see the world progress beyond what they’ve known or been taught by their narrow-minded circles of family and friends. They are angry because they no longer have the upper hand. Their power is being stripped from them, so they lash out at any given chance to get that fix. To feel that power. That’s why our current version of America is such a dangerous place for people and for progress. Those newly-closeted bigots have been given the greenlight to reclaim their freedom for hatred and to take back the power that they’ve felt dwindling before them.
The need for that power is what drives the violence in this opening scene and stripping power away from evil is the parallel that connects the world of It and It Chapter Two to our own.
The film takes place 27 years after the events of Chapter One, in which the Losers Club took the fight to Pennywise the *dancing* clown in the sewers beneath Derry, Maine. Now grown and far away from the freaky town they grew up in, the Losers are leading lives that strangely mimic their childhood, except they don’t really remember much about that. Derry shrouds your mind in a haze, and the further away you get from the town and the more time that passes, you tend to forget all about its haunting details.
Pennywise is a long-forgotten memory for each of the Losers, save for Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa) who stayed put in Derry his entire life, waiting for IT to come back. Bill Denbrough (James McAvoy) is a successful, Stephen King-type author who has big studio movie adaptations of his works and is constantly catching low-blows from his peers about his inability to write a good ending (A criticism that King often - and unjustly - fields himself). Beverly Marsh (Jessica Chastain) is a highly regarded fashion designer in an abusive marriage. Eddie Kaspbrak (James Ransone) is a risk assessor who is married to a spitting image of his overbearing mother, played by Molly Atkinson, the same actress, in a bit of fun casting. Ben Hanscom (Jay Ryan) has long-shed his childhood weight and enjoyed success as an architect. Richie Tozier (Bill Hader) is now a famous stand-up comedian, and Stanley Uris (Andy Bean) lives a quiet life with his wife, far removed from creepy paintings that come to life and suck blood from your face.
When the vicious killings start up again right on schedule, Mike reaches out to each of the Losers to remind them of their pact to return to Derry should IT ever return. Much of the first act of It Chapter Two handles this reunion, as the Losers return to their hometown and begin to remember the horrifying past that eluded their memory but continued to plague them for so many years. Now together again, it’s up to the childhood friends to put a stop to the evil entity once and for all.
It’s inevitable that It Chapter Two will be frequently compared to the first film, but I find that unnecessary. Having watched both parts back to back on the night of Chapter Two’s premiere, I feel that both chapters blend together, almost seamlessly, to create one massive and epic experience. Director Andy Muschietti masterfully recaptures the balanced tone of the first film, blending horror, humor and heart to extremely satisfying effect. Some may find that the moments of humor undermine the horror, but that’s true to Muschietti’s funhouse vision. This is horror that scares rather than scars. Horror that excites and leaves you grinning from ear to ear with each elaborate new set piece. Chapter Two especially is an odyssey of beautifully bizarre and bat-shit crazy imagination the likes of which we’ve never seen in a blockbuster horror film.
A complaint I’ve seen several times already is that the scares in It Chapter Two are repetitive and structured too similarly as those in the first film, but ultimately, that’s kind of the point, right? Over the course of existence, evil has taken many forms, but the agenda of evil is always the same. In regard to these characters who are facing down the traumas of their youth, it makes complete sense for the horror to be the same. It’s their trauma. It’s their horror. From the character perspective - these two movies *are* driven by character, after all - they are standing against their own repressed pain and learning to strip its power away so that they can free themselves.
Speaking of the characters, there has never been a horror film(s) to have characters affect me so deeply. I love them. Even with a nearly three-hour runtime, I happily would have spent half a dozen more hours with these Losers. Each member of the adult cast is superb, as are the kids who reprise their roles in flashbacks. Bill Hader is especially perfect as the adult version of Richie Tozier. He brings necessary humor to the character, but his performance is also deeply emotional - which adds even more weight when his backstory is expanded upon. I cried and you probably will too.
Perhaps neither of the chapters would work, however, without the phenomenal performance of Bill Skarsgard as the central villain. Skarsgard, again, is so scary and convincing as Pennywise that you forget you’re watching a performance at all. It’s as though this purely evil entity, this eater of worlds, actually exists.
None of this is to say that It Chapter Two is a perfect film, but the complaints I have are so miniscule that they didn’t alter my adoration of it in the slightest. The digital de-aging of the child actors is unfortunately noticeable and it seems that their voices are altered at times too. It can be a bit distracting if you view the films back to back and have the kids fresh in your mind. The chemistry between the adults, too, seems a bit off upon their initial reunion. This can likely be attributed to the general awkwardness of the characters in this moment since the chemistry clicks into high gear in the second act, but it still took me out of the scene momentarily.
By the time It Chapter Two wraps up, though, I was immensely moved. Muschietti’s epic packs the type of ending that makes you long for the moments of your life that are long gone while simultaneously inspiring you about the life you still have yet to live. In a future where we strip power away from evil and reduce them to the clowns that they are, the world is a beautiful place. The monsters in our closets no longer exist. We can be free to be who we are. Our pain can be healed. It almost feels like… floating.
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