Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1165935
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 15 SEPTEMBER 2019 FILM FILM HORROR stories on the screen tend to be associated with ei- ther disposable pulp or a kind of throbbing, disturbing bril- liance. It's a genre that tends to live in the middle ground eco- nomically speaking (there will always be an audience for hor- ror, but rarely to the extent of the current superhero craze) but that otherwise operates on a violent pendulum swing of extremes: like comedy, it tends to be either trash or treasure. The current adaptation of Ste- phen King's novel IT, directed by Andy Muschietti and thank- fully departing from the me- diocre misfire that was the '90s mini-series – which despite a brain-searing performance by Tim Curry really doesn't hold up all that well – is an excep- tion to this in many ways. Perhaps harnessing the newly revived trend for horror-tinged coming of age stories set in the '80s – for which we have the record-breaking Netflix show Stranger Things to thank – the first 'chapter' of Muschietti's updated take on King's 1986 doorstopper novel drew in the 'young adult' crowds and, per- haps by dint of filling a gap that would otherwise have been stuffed with Hunger Games fans, resulted in that once-in- a-generation phenomenon: a horror film that does serious (but really, really serious) busi- ness. So it's hardly surprising that, now that we're reuniting with the 'Losers Club' on the big screen just a year later, their adult selves walk into a film ready to be received with ap- posite fanfare and spectacu- larly polished set pieces. But while the aforementioned hor- ror-brilliance of IT lies in the creepy, eye-catching simplic- ity of its central villain – Pen- nywise (Bill Skarsgard), the cosmic alien threat posing as a killer clown – simplicity is the one thing this second chapter sorely, and fatally, lacks. We open on a brutal homo- phobic attack in the town of Derry, in which the victim is played – bafflingly – by the Canadian arthouse wunderind actor-director Xavier Dolan. But while the assailants in question are, upsettingly enough, all too human, the riv- erside coup de grace is deliv- ered by a hungry and fanged al- ien presence: Pennywise, back to haunt the town after a 27 year absence. Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa) is the only remaining mem- ber of the Losers' Club left in Derry and consequently, the only one who fully remembers the details of their run-in with the entity all those years ago. Hoping they will do good on their pledge to battle Penny- wise should he ever come back, he tracks down the remaining members of the so-called 'Los- ers Club' and summons them to town. Bill (James McAvoy) is now a successful horror writer in the middle of overseeing an adaptation of one of his books, with his wife Audra (Jess Weix- ler) playing a lead role. Bev- erly (Jessica Chastain) co-runs a successful fashion designer with her husband, who is, however, just as abusive as her father was back in the days of the first Pennywise attack. The hypochondriac Eddie (James Ransone) is a risk analyst in an insurance firm, married to an equally neurotic wife. Richie (Bill Hader) now channels his tendency for vulgar humour into a lucrative stand-up com- edy career. Ben (Jay Ryan), the formerly plump 'new kid' with a soft spot for Beverly, is now a buff, conscientious and well- adjusted architect. Their collective amnesia about what happened in Derry back in the '80s is what has kept them sane and safe after all this time… as evidenced by the fate of the last of their num- ber, Stanley (Andy Bean), who commits suicide after suffer- ing a panic attack induced by Mike's call. And certainly, none of the other members bar Mike are too keen to face that trauma head-on once again. But if they don't, other kids will die. And Mike has a plan on how to stop the creature for good this time around. 'IT' is a horror narrative Director Andy Muschietti returns to complete the Stephen King- inspired killer clown duology with a confidently bankable performance in his rearview, but the results are something of a scattered misfire Teodor Reljic Not out of the woods yet: Bill Hader (far left), Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, James Ransone, Isaiah Mustafa and Jay Ryan are forced to reform the 'Losers' Club' after the murderous clown from their childhoods returns to homicidally haunt their native town of Derry Brutal and diminishing returns