IT Trailer

It’s been a while since clowns really scared us, which means it’s time for a proper film version of Stephen King’s infamous It.

As with much of King’s work, the novel is very long, so this is just the first of two films that will tell the complete story. The 1950s section is up first, with a group of kids encountering the shape-shifting entity Pennywise for the first time.

Let’s face it, horror is on an upswing and ’80s nostalgia is going strong, so the massive hype for It will almost certainly result in huge box office numbers. The question here is quality, and while the project has had a few problems during development, all indications are that they landed in the right place.

Quality child actors like Jaeden Lieberher and Finn Wolfhard make up the core group, and Bill Skarsgård looks like a downright chilling clown. However, it’s the tone of the marketing that gives me great hope, with long, creepy scares taking center stage over modern jumps. A slower pace means more time to delve into the really terrifying metaphors that King was playing with in the novel, and besides, people ate up the retro pace in Stranger Things.

The biggest question mark here is director Andy Muschietti, who made the moderately successful Mama and feels like a director brought in to follow the studio’s commands. Maybe that’ll work out for the best, though, since Mama’s strongest aspects were its framing and style. It was the flimsy story that ultimately weighed that movie down, and since he doesn’t have to worry about the story here, this might be a good opportunity to build on his debut.

However it turns out, I guarantee that a lot of people will see It, and for all our sakes, I hope the clown scares the crap out of us.

It is directed by Andy Muschietti and stars Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Lieberher, and Finn Wolfhard. It will be released in the U.S. and the U.K. on September 8th, 2017. For international release dates, click here.

Do you think It will live up to its source material? Let us know in the comments!