Directed by: Andy Muschietti
Release date: September 6th, 2019
Rating 8/10
It Chapter Two is the sequel/continuation of 2017's It. This film picks up 27 years after the events of the first film, when It has returned to Derry. Together, the Loser's Club must reunite and stop the murderous clown. I enjoyed It Chapter Two a lot. Bill Skarsgård once again delivers a fantastically unnerving performance as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The cast of the Loser's Club (27 years later) also bring great performances to the sequel. Besides looking remarkably like their younger counterparts, their performances seem based on that of the younger actors, which really sells the fact that these characters are the same as the ones from the first movie. The scares in this movie were good, while they were on screen. Maybe it's just me, but some of the scary parts didn't seems to scare me as much as the first movie did. Don't get me wrong, there are a few sequences that scared me, but the film made me laugh more often than it scared me. Bill Hader stands out among the Loser's Club as the adult Richie, counterpart to Finn Wolfhard's young Richie. Hader is equally as funny as he is heartbreaking, completely stealing every scene he's in. Where the film falls short to me is in it's comparison to the first. 2017's It was great, I loved it. Even though this film is longer and features more prominent actors, there's something about the first one that really sticks with me. Perhaps it was discovering how this version of Pennywise "hunted" and tortured the Loser's Club whereas in this film, Pennywise remains the same; it's the Loser's Club that is different. Which is interesting, but the reason that we all come to these movies is to watch a shapeshifting, murdering, demonic clown. There are times in this movie where Pennywise doesn't even show up for 20-30 minutes. The ending sequence, while epic, didn't satisfy me as much as I thought it would. Without spoiling, I can say that, to me, the creepiest part about Pennywise is his tendency to show up anywhere and everywhere. Seeing him through the bushes eating a human arm, seeing him jump out of a casket and charge at you, or emerging from a projecting screen 5X his size; these are what made him terrifying. During the ending we see him at all times just attacking the Losers. Losing the element of "what's there in the dark?" lost the horror aspect of what makes Pennywise a great horror villain. It Chapter Two is a competent sequel to the first film and does justice in finishing the story. While I liked the first film better, this film was still filled with scares that makes an entertaining horror film.